


Bloodborne

by agent_florida



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Gen, M/M, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-07
Updated: 2011-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:09:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 36,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_florida/pseuds/agent_florida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zombie apocalypse for everyone! Traveling to New York City gives York the impetus he needs to keep moving, but the journey will test his resolve to remain unattached, and what's at the destination will change how he sees the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The freeways are deserted, cars driven off the pavement and into berms and across barriers, blood and oil coating the concrete. Driving is easier – less traffic – but also a bit spooky. You haven’t come across another human being in a week.

Until you see the guy in the middle of the road.

He’s fighting off a horde, using kung fu you didn’t even know was physically possible. What are those, knives? He’s fighting off zombies with knives? You can’t really fault him. You have to improvise in times like these. And by the looks of things, this guy’s doing pretty all right for himself. You hate to interrupt. At the same time, he’s in your way and he needs to move. You wail on the horn, but the guy doesn’t even look your way. In his defense, he’s a little busy at the moment, and it’s not like the zombies are going to stop coming at him just because he’s distracted.

Well, that gives you only one choice. Only one    
_awesome_   
 choice, that is. You could just turn around and leave the kid to his own devices, but that hardly strikes you as fair. People gotta look out for each other in a zombie apocalypse like this. Besides, you’ve never had a chance to do this before.

So you put the car in fifth, rev your engine, and set your sights on the horde that’s coming from the side of the road.

The car’s leaping out of your control, going fifty, sixty-five, eighty, and the impact jars you badly when you plow into your first wave of bodies. Still, seeing the stupid looks on their faces when they go flying across the hood and over the windshield and splat somewhere behind you – it’s priceless, it really is. You’ve never had a zombie kill like this before. You’ll have to add it to your best-of list later.

If you make it through this.

You’ll make it through this. You put the vehicle in reverse, and you’re ever so thankful you chose an SUV for this job, because it makes running over the prone bodies that much easier. Suspension’s going to blow after this, but it’s worth it. Ka-toong, ka-toong, ka-toong, and you suppose that’s the sound of the zombies’ heads exploding under your tires. It’s a good mental image, and you can’t help the lopsided grin that spreads across your face.

You take a break from the action to grind the gears of the truck again. This time, the other guy looks up from his work, fixing you with a harsh glare. His eyes are green, so green, and his hair must have been blond, once, underneath the semi-permanent mat of gore clumping it together in a spiked-up style. He’s just a kid, really. You have to admire his determination to get through this himself. Looks like he’s been walking, given that there’s two suitcases filled to bursting by the side of the road. Kid could probably use a ride.

You’ll get to that part later. You have some undead things to send back to their graves first.

Your passenger seat is filled with guns and other explosive paraphernalia. When you reach over, a battle rifle comes to your hand first. You like this gun. It’s gotten you out of some jams before, and it’s never been jammed itself. Ammo is easy to find, too, so it’s not like you have to worry about conserving resources while you spray and pray into a clump of shuffling, bloody strangers.

It’s hard to think that these things were once people. Not only does it not make a whole lot of sense – despite the looks, these things clearly aren’t human – but if you leave your mind here for too long, you’ll lose sight on what you’re doing. What you’re doing is defending yourself against a mindless group of cannibals. At least they’re the slow shuffling kind. You’ve heard reports of other zombies down near the Mexican border who are fast little freaks, fanged, running on all fours, screaming and screeching, hunting alone but no less deadly for not traveling in packs. What was it they called those things? Chupa – chupa – chupa something. Chupathingies.

You have your hands full with the garden variety, though. Not like they’re any less lethal. You prefer to engage from further out; that kid is either stupid or has the hugest huevos of anyone you’ve ever met, because he’s got them at close range. If he gets bit, you’ll at least put him out of his misery. There’s no going back once they get their teeth in you, and they always try to get their teeth in you first. They’re hungry. They’re always hungry.

The horde’s thinned from thirty to about three. Some of them seem like they still want to get up; you pump a little extra lead into their faces. Always double-tap. Always. You learned it the hard way, watching that chick you were traveling with get swallowed by two guys she thought were down. When you look over your shoulder, the kid is finishing off the last three, two knives in his hands. He’s even beheaded one of them.

You could use him as a traveling buddy.

Of course, you can’t breach the subject with him until everything’s accounted for. A little heavy breathing from you while you scan the ground, but nothing else is moving. “All clear,” you pant out.

“Affirmative.” The kid’s diction is crisp, his vocabulary professional.

You start to wonder whether there’s something wrong with him. Any survivors are going to be more than a little off, though, and this much, you can deal with. You don’t have to be crazy to live like this, but it helps. “Pretty handy with a knife,” you call out to him, nodding. Complimenting him wouldn’t hurt if you’re going to court him to travel with you.

He’s about five steps ahead of you, though. “Forming into a traveling party would be mutually beneficial for both of us.”

When he puts it that way, you don’t want to say no. “Where you headed?” you ask him as he goes back to get his luggage.

“I have no particular destination in mind.” You wonder how he can carry that much stuff, and you find yourself wondering what the hell he has in those bags if it takes him so much effort to sling them over his shoulders.

“I’m going east. That good for you?” Going without talking for a week makes your voice come out a little hoarse, a little overeager. You’ve been away from people for too long. You need to be with someone. People go nuts without a little company.

The kid helps himself to your car, opening the rear driver’s side door and shoving his duffels in whatever space he can find. “As long as there is a horde, I will find work to do,” he mutters, swiftly shutting his door on his stuff before it tumbles out onto the road.

“Suspension’s a little rocky,” you apologize, heading back to the car, “but she’s been good to me.” The kid opens the driver’s side door, reaches for the keys still in the ignition – “The hell are you doing?” You’re the driver. That’s your car. You stole it fair and square.

“I will be better able to maneuver this vehicle,” he says drily, staring right at you. His green eyes are disarming, but you can’t let yourself be affected by it. Besides, you know what he’s looking at. The left side of your face is absolutely mauled, and it’s true, the vision in your left eye is kind of blurry by now, but hey, injuries happen when you’re fighting for your life every day.

There’s no way you can fight with this kid’s logic, and if a compromise is what it takes to keep him in your party of two, then he’s got it. “Fine,” you grumble, circling around to the passenger’s side.

You try to catch all the guns as they fall out of that side of the car, but there’s just so damn many of them. Good thing the seats in the back went missing a long time ago; you just shove everything back there and hope it doesn’t jostle around too much. Finally you get your ass into the seat, but the other guy is still glaring at you. “Please utilize your safety harness.”

“You’re really going to lecture me about wearing a seatbelt?” You snort. “I think I’ll be all right.”

“As you please.”

The kid literally pushes the pedal to the metal and the SUV rockets forward with a roar. And he knows how to work the gearshift, too – he doesn’t let the automatic transmission do all the work. Funny, he doesn’t even look like he’s old enough to drive. “How old are you, kid?”

“I am twenty-one years of age.” Ugh, with the crisp diction again. You’ve had worse partners, though. If the speech pattern’s the only thing wrong with him, you’ll consider yourself lucky and leave it at that. “What am I to call you?”

“No names,” you say hastily. It’s never smart to get too attached to people in a wasteland like this. If you don’t use your real name, you find it harder to make a real bond with someone besides a pact of convenience. Then you don’t have to feel all chewed up when your traveling partner gets eaten alive. “You can call me York, I guess,” you acquiesce. “That’s where I’m going. New York City.”

“And I am Delta.” The kid doesn’t even take his eyes off the road when he reaches out his hand from the gearshift in anticipation of a handshake.

You eye his hand warily. “That’s your    
_name?_   
”

“No names,” he echoes you. “It is my designation.”

It’s hard to believe, but you’ve heard weirder. You shake his hand; Delta seems pleased enough, but he takes his hand back as soon as you’re done and flexes his fingers before clamping down on the gearshift again. “You gonna explain yourself, or…?” The seat’s falling apart, but it still reclines easily enough, and it’s relaxing to put your feet up on the dashboard. It’s been so long since you rode shotgun that this is a rare treat.

“Please keep your appendages out of my field of vision,” Delta says in a long-suffering tone. Fine; you can still stretch out even if you leave them on the floor. “To answer your question, that depends. Do you actually wish to hear my story, or are you merely being polite?”

“Both.” You shrug, then reach into the backseat for a can of Tab. That stuff is your weakness, but you’re running out – only one case left. You gotta savor these. You haven’t seen any for months, not in a single grocery store. Besides making it to the Big Apple, that is your other sole purpose in life right now. Well, you have three purposes: get to where you’re going, find what you want once you get there, and don’t get killed on your way. “It’s not like we don’t have the time.”

“I believe my origins would be considered uninteresting,” Delta muses out loud. “I was commissioned by the United Nations Security Council as a containment officer.”

You can’t help the spit-take. You’re traveling with a bona fide containment officer? At least you can blame your reaction on the zombie Delta just ran over; the impact jostled you in your seat. “When did they commission you?”

“Roughly one year ago.”

Thankfully your mouth is empty this time, but you still end up coughing after you swallow. “The outbreak only started six months ago, how does that…?”

“I am aware that there are inconsistencies in my story,” Delta acknowledges. The freeway’s straight and narrow from here, but he doesn’t put the cruise control on, which surprises you. Then again, this kid handles vehicles like a pro. Probably has a map of the country memorized, too, because he hasn’t once asked you for directions. “I cannot reconcile these with a timeline of the outbreak at the moment.”

“The hell not?” The one thing about the survivors, you’ve noticed, is that all of you were hungering for information – information that the rich muckity-mucks in their concrete nuclear bunkers didn’t seem all too eager to provide. Having an agent with you is like hitting pay dirt, but if he wasn’t going to talk, it would all come to nothing.

Delta keeps his eyes on the road, but you notice a subtle change in the set of his eyebrows, his mouth. You know that look – you’ve worn it too many times before. “I have very few memories of a time before I was commissioned.” It’s so quiet you almost can’t hear it over the throttle of the engine.

That look, that tone, is part of the ‘don’t pry’ set. You’d appreciate it if he extended you the same courtesy, or at least didn’t force you open before you were ready to talk. So you stay silent, slug down a little more of your soda, and roll your window down. Feels good to get some wind through your hair. It’s way too long by now, and you’ve taken to holding it back with a piece of string or a spare rubber band, which breaks easily enough when you tug at it. You can’t find it in yourself to care about physical appearances too much any more. This war’s turned everyone into scavengers, and everyone seems to look the same after a while: thousand-yard stare, permanent layer of grime and gore, threadbare cotton shirt, jeans with holes worn through them, shoes with a few too many miles on them.

This Delta kid is a rare exception. Besides his hair, he looks pretty put-together: black stretch turtleneck, black fatigues, black steel-toed combat boots. You wouldn’t be surprised if he was hiding a knife in each of the soles. Between that and the way he talks, you know he means business. He’s hard to piss off, though – sounds more like he’s scolding than actually angry at anything. “We will be stopping at dusk,” he informs you curtly. Controlling, too, used to being in charge.

You’re fine with taking the passenger’s seat for a while, though, if you have someone this capable leading the way. “Not before we find a motel or something,” you pitch in before throwing your now-empty can out the window. There’s no one to fine you for littering, so why the hell not?

“You wish to take advantage of those facilities?” If Delta would be irresponsible for longer than two seconds, he’d probably be looking at you with his mouth gaping at the force of your stupidity, or at least that’s how the question comes out of his mouth.

You just shrug, put your hands behind your head. “I can break in, no problem. Don’t know about you, but I could use a shower,” you say pointedly. He’s not the only one who can be snarky. “Be nice to have a bed to sleep in, too. And everything’s usually pretty locked down. Might even get lucky and have a stocked minibar.”

“If you are able to break in, logic dictates that others may be able to as well,” Delta points out.

“Well, yeah, but do you think other survivors are going to hurt us?” Once the question’s out of your mouth, though, you wonder how rhetorical it really was. Some people just end up cracking under the pressure. You’ve known a few in your time that shoot first and ask questions later.

Delta’s already onto your next thought. “If not survivors, then a horde may be able to find us.”

You decide you like this kid. It’s almost like you share the same mind or something, the way he can so easily follow your train of thought. You don’t like talking any more than you have to, and from the sound of it neither does he, so it’s nice to be able to skip about seven steps and get right to the point. Speaking sometimes takes too long anyhow, and sometimes you’re just too busy to shout. He’s too serious, though – needs to lighten up a bit, let his defenses down for longer than five seconds. You try out a joke on him. “Do you    
_ever_   
 sleep?”

This time, he does take his eyes off the road, and the look you get from him is both scathing and hilarious. “Of course,” he enunciates clearly, as if he’s talking to a four-year-old.

“Just making sure,” you say lightly, gesturing back to the road. No sense of humor, then. Either you’ll have to work on it, or he might just be a lost cause. You hope for the former. “You don’t seem like the type.”

“Elaborate.” It’s an order, not a question.

“I don’t see how you ever let yourself rest,” you babble. It’s nice to talk, so you just let your mouth run for a while, fill the silence. “I mean, there’s always going to be zombies. You just don’t seem like you’re about to let your guard down for long enough to get a solid eight hours, if you know what I mean.”

“I never leave myself vulnerable.” You can see the smallest hint of a smile curling up the corner of his mouth, but it’s gone as soon as you blink. “I engineer triggered traps.”

“That’s…” You wish you had thought of that. Usually you just sleep sitting up with one eye open and your gun in your lap. “That’s really creative.”

“I was taught by another containment officer.” His eyes go slightly unfocused.

You don’t want to pry, but at the same time, if you can get just a little intel at a time, eventually you’ll get the whole picture, and maybe he’ll even start trusting you. “How many of you are there?”

“Enough.”

You know a non-answer when you hear one. “So you don’t know.”

“Ours was not the only training facility.” Delta veers sharply to avoid a pile of rotting corpses; you don’t want to think on whether they were human or zombie. “Regardless, I do not currently have a count of active officers. Several of us have been decommissioned in the line of duty.” Nice way to avoid saying ‘brutally murdered by a horde of the undead’. You appreciate the euphemism, at least. You figure this is the point in the conversation where he’s about to start asking about other people he’s traveled with, and you’re right. “Have you encountered anyone by the name of Sigma?”

“Are all of you named with Greek letters?” Delta doesn’t dignify that with an answer. “I don’t think so, but it coulda just been in passing. Description?”

“Male, Egyptian-American, long black hair. Last known location is Albuquerque, New Mexico.”

You shake your head. “Haven’t been out that way in ages.”

“Perhaps you have seen his traveling partner. Male, six feet six inches tall, roughly two hundred and fifty pounds, answers to Maine.”

“Sorry.” You mean it, too. It hurts when you don’t know where people are, whether they’re okay or whether something awful happened to them. While you’re on the subject, you might as well bring up your tracking list, too. “Run into anyone called Tex?”

“I assume she would be located along the Mexican border,” Delta muses.

“Yeah, that’s where I last saw her, down near Austin. Tough bitch, built like a bear, wears a bandana in her hair. Seen her?” Not like you actually care, but she did get you the car, so you feel like you owe it to her to at least ask.

“I have not.”

Your stomach falls a little bit. Not like she wouldn’t be okay, just that it would be nice to know for sure. “She last split off with some ginger bastard, went by Omega. One of yours?”

“Yes,” Delta confirms. The engine is whining a little harder now – baby probably needs more gas. Delta looks like he’s prepared to run her ‘til she’s dry, though. Not what you would have done, but you’re not the one driving, and you probably don’t know cars as well as he does. “Have you encountered our officer Theta?”

“Yeah!” It’s nice to have someone in common to talk about. “I stayed with him and his posse about two months ago – just for a couple of days. Him and these twins, guy and gal, holed themselves up in Sioux Falls. Got enough supplies to stay for probably the next ten years.” They were some of the lucky ones. You’d have stayed longer, but you were still feeling restless. It hadn’t been time for you to settle down yet. “What about – do you know this guy, goes by Washington? Hard to miss him, he runs around with a turret mounted on his Pontiac.”

The sun starts glaring in from the back of the car, and you have to squint to see the road in front of you. You’re going east, then. “My last traveling companion branched off with him near St. Louis three weeks ago. I am unsure whether they were traveling to the east or to the west.”

Oh, right, because Washington was more than a little ambiguous. “He’s from the state, going to the city,” you explain. “We might cut across them on our way. Who’d you say was with him?”

“Agent Epsilon.” Delta looks wistful for a moment. “I believe my decision to split from him was the best choice to be made in that situation, but Washington appeared to be unstable at times, and I doubt his ability to consistently care for someone as young as Epsilon.”

You doubt it, too: Wash was always more than a little unhinged, and you always wondered what made him so twitchy and paranoid. You dropped him when you stayed in the Dakotas – he’d never liked South anyhow – and so it makes sense to you that he’d go south on I-29 to Kansas City. He’d probably started on I-70, and that would have taken him right through St. Louis. Probably not the time to ask why Delta was in St. Louis, so you file that away for later. “How young is young?” you settle on asking.

“Epsilon is sixteen years of age.”

“That is    
_not_   
 kosher.” It’s a reflex by now. Kids shouldn’t have to put up with an apocalypse. And even if he’d only been commissioned six or so months ago, that still means that his whole life must have been geared towards his current purpose. “He’s got the same training you do, right?”

“I have no knowledge in how the other officers were trained.” The way he says it means that the conversation is over.

You make a mental note to yourself: Delta’s origins are a police-line-do-not-cross kind of subject. Not like you never cross those, but not without the right kind of preparations. You want to know more, so much more, but if you’re right, this trip to the city might take a week and a half. Maybe you have a chance of softening him up enough, but that’s balanced against the need to stay detached.

You have become such an emotionally stunted bastard since all this started happening.

The thought doesn’t even make you uncomfortable. You glance to the radio: it reads six-thirty in the evening, but with adjustments, that means it’s what, four-thirty? You’ve always been bad at time-zone math. “You’re not gonna mind if I nod off, are you?” It’s so tempting, but if Delta needs a real copilot, you don’t want to leave him hanging.

“I am unconcerned with your state of consciousness,” Delta says drily. The car’s still going about a hundred miles an hour, and he’s hit a bump every now and then, but for the most part, the ride’s been smooth so far.

You yawn, stretch, assume the position. “Promise I’ll keep watch tonight.” Delta nods sharply, which might be anything from acknowledgement to gratitude. Might not even need to, if he can booby-trap the place like he says.


	2. Chapter 2

The peeling sound of rubber against pavement jolts you awake, and you’re nearly thrown out of your seat through the windshield as Delta brings the SUV to a sudden stop. Delta looks at you, and even though he’s not that expressive, you can tell that any other person would have burst out laughing. “I warned you to restrain yourself,” he says drily.   
  
You rub at the knot on your forehead angrily. “Didn’t need to be so aggressive about it,” you grumble. This isn’t even the worst way you’ve woken up – there was the one time you fell asleep after setting the microwave far too high, not only burning your breakfast but also alerting every zombie in a two-mile radius that there was food to be had.   
  
When you step out of the car, the air is humid but cool; there’s a brilliant sunset lighting up the sky in the west. The familiar smell of petroleum hits your nose, along with the ever-present stench of death. Everything smells bad everywhere you’ve been. If Delta’s decided to refuel, though, that means there’s a gas station convenience store somewhere around here – to your right, apparently. “If you wish to gather more supplies, now is the most convenient opportunity,” Delta calls out to you from where he’s pumping gas on the other side of the car.   
  
“Now is always the best time,” you tell yourself under your breath. You still have a little daylight, and the station’s parking lot lights will probably get switched on by their solar panels here in a minute, so it’s not like you don’t have light to see a threat by, but it’s always nice to go in prepared. Zombies need food just like actual people.   
  
Your backseat and trunk area is a general mess, but an AK-47 is on top of the pile of assorted weaponry, clothes, and food. By the weight of it, it’s fully loaded. You briefly wonder if you need any of your blunt weapons – you have a baseball bat and a shovel back here somewhere – but it’s just a gas station. There can’t be that many of them in there.   
  
Except that there are.   
  
How that many zombies got into a convenience store, you have no idea. But there’s ten of them and only one of you, and there’s only so much ass you can kick at once. One glance inside the glass doors has you running back to the car and rummaging through the back seat again. “I am here to assist,” Delta tells you.   
  
“Shouldn’t be a problem.” It comes out more blasé than you really feel. “Just gotta see something real quick.” Where is – there, right under your hand, and when you pull it out, your softball slugger looks perfect to you, covered like it is in barbed wire. Oh, the fun you will have with this. “I will be riiiiiight back,” you drawl.   
  
You don’t even bother opening the doors. The glass is just going to get broken anyhow, so you might as well get that out of the way first. The aluminum bat takes care of the situation nicely. The sound also makes every zombie in the tiny store shuffle to look straight at you. “Good evening, ya bastards,” you say cheerfully enough. “Welcome to tonight’s entertainment.”   
  
Even though these aren’t chupathingies, that doesn’t mean they can’t move fast when they want to. The first one to come at you looks like she was once a housewife, but her clothing is so tattered that her tit’s just hanging out. Of course, you’re not really looking at a decomposed tit, you’re more concerned with bashing her brain in. Always better to conserve ammo, since you never know when you’re going to find more. Five seconds of going at her skull and you know she’s not getting up. Nine.   
  
A shotgun blast comes from behind you. Eight. When you look back, Delta’s silhouetted against the setting sun, walking forward and dramatically ejecting his spent case. No matter how awesome he looks, though, you didn’t ask for help. “You took my kill!” you have the time to complain before you set to work on another.   
  
“My apologies.” If you liked this kid before, you are now downright in love with him. He’s cool when everything’s blowing up around him, calculating and precise, and his accuracy is frightening. You don’t recognize his gun, which means it was in his duffels somewhere. How much heat is this kid packing? You’re really looking forward to finding out. “You appeared to be outnumbered.”   
  
“I’ve taken more than this,” you reassure him. One of his shots splatters brains across one of the glass refrigerator doors, and when the zombie – big, fat fuck – falls into it, the glass shatters everywhere. Seven. Is that Tab inside? Your bad side’s facing it, and you’re a little busy at the moment. The sixth one eventually goes down, some eight-year-old brat who’d been stuffing his face with Twinkies still in the wrapper. You don’t like offing kids, but that wasn’t a kid, that was a monster.   
  
Delta’s plowing through them left and right – five, four, three – and somehow he finds the time for witty banter. “That was not the largest horde I have faced.”   
  
Great. This is going to turn into a dick-swinging contest. Best to just keep your head down and concentrate on the job at hand. You’ve missed off-handed conversations while you’re bashing bodies into the ground. You’re sick of this shit, and so you slam the last two to the ground with a wide swing of the barbed-wire bat. From out of nowhere, Delta’s at your left side, and you look to each other briefly before pumping lead into these things’ skulls.   
  
You’re both panting and covered in blood by the time it’s over. When you look to him, you know the small smile on his face is mirrored on your own. You don’t coordinate it, but you both drop your firearms to your sides at the same time, and you heft the bat over your shoulder carefully, making sure not to cut yourself. “What is it you were searching for?” Delta says, as if you two didn’t just kill ten humanoids.   
  
“You probably wouldn’t understand.” All your previous traveling companions thought you were crazy, and maybe you are, but this is a crazy you can understand, and at least you’re not completely cracked. Having your drink of choice ties you back to a time before the continental United States was swarming with undead. As long as there’s Tab in your life, you feel like you can handle this. A world without Tab is not a world you want to be a part of.   
  
You step past Delta, over to the refrigerator door he broke in the fight. You thought you saw – damn it. Mister Pibb. Not even close. You won’t settle for anything less than the genuine article. It crosses your mind briefly that you might single-handedly have drained the country of its Tab supply, but you don’t dwell on it too long. You still have that case – well, twenty-three, now – in your car. Delta can probably sense your mood, because he comes across so delicately when he asks “Are we finished here?”   
  
“Yeah, we’re finished, Dee.” Not exactly – you settle for smashing each refrigerator door you pass on your way out of the convenience store.   
  
“I would appreciate you calling me by my full designation,” Delta calls back to you over the sound of shattering glass.   
  
“Not gonna happen.” You come up with a nickname for everyone you meet. Kid better think himself fortunate that his isn’t too embarrassing. “Deal with it.”   
  
The two of you trudge back to the car silently. Weapons get dumped in the back seat again before Delta revs the engine; she sounds much better with gas in her. “I will attempt to find us adequate lodging for the night,” Delta announces, “but it may require key card entry.”   
  
You just let out a small huff of laughter. “I can get past that, no problem.”   
  
“Excellent.” The car rockets off its spot, peeling out with a piercing shriek. At this rate, Delta’s going to shred through this set of tires before they make it to Pennsylvania.   
  
The darker it gets, the edgier Delta becomes. You can’t exactly blame him. Back roads were creepy enough before they were infested with ex-people who want to eat you alive. Now, the darkening landscape closes in on you at an alarming rate once the sun sinks down, and the headlights can only pan so far ahead, so far out to the sides.   
  
Delta sees the sign before you do. Kid must have perfect night vision – either that, or his eyes glow in the dark or something. There’s something alarming about just how green they are, and you wouldn’t be surprised if whatever training he’d had included installing night vision goggles inside his eyes. The kid only slows down enough to swing off the road, and the car doesn’t slow down to a reasonable pace until you’re sure you’re about to drive through a motel room window. Delta makes a gigantic donut in the parking lot, the tires coming up to rest against the tiny curb, and the car rocks a little bit to the far side until it settles down on all fours again. “We have arrived.”   
  
And not a moment too soon. Any more of that crazy driving and you’re sure you would have gone into cardiac arrest. “I’ll try to break in,” you call back to Delta as you climb shakily out of the passenger’s seat. “Oh, and I could use some light.” Before you leave, you grab the pistol out of the glove compartment. You can never be too prepared.   
  
Delta backs up dexterously, then pulls in straight quickly enough to make the passenger door slam shut on its own. He not only gets you light, but flicks on the brights. At least now you won’t be working in your own shadow. “Will you be able to enter?”   
  
You stare down at the locking mechanism. This is one of the tougher ones you’ve seen. Was this hotel for rich people or something? The security here is tight. “Honestly, I don’t know,” you admit, staring it down. “This isn’t an encrypted lock like I’m used to, it’s a holographic lock.”   
  
“I was unaware of any difference between the two,” Delta mutters, leaning down to peer closer at the interface.   
  
You just shrug, starting your work. “They have different names.” It’s hard – seems both pressure-activated and coordination-oriented – but eventually you figure out that you need just half of your finger pads on the controls for it to start moving. The gesture takes a little longer to pick up, but you get access to the room in under two minutes. “Ready?”   
  
Delta doesn’t answer you – at least, not verbally. Both of you raise your pistols at the same time, though. You let Delta do the honors of kicking the door in, since you cracked the code, and then, through the lights from the car, you and Delta sweep your way in.   
  
The kid nearly jumps out of his skin when you flick on the lights. At least this place still has electricity. Hopefully it still has running water – you’re longing to throw Delta under a shower faucet, and you know you’re not faring much better. Delta starts searching through places you wouldn’t even dream to look – behind the shower curtain, inside the closet, under the beds, past the air vents. “Calm down,” you say gently. It’s endearing to see him trying so hard. “Ain’t nobody in here but you and me.”   
  
Finally Delta takes his pistol out of his line of sight. “I was not merely looking for antagonists,” he snips at you. “I was also categorizing possible entry points for other intruders and locating space for adequate traps.”   
  
You’re more concerned with the center of the room than the periphery. There’s only one bed in here, and you’re not looking forward to fighting over who gets to sleep in it. If it comes down to it, you can sleep in the SUV, but you’d really prefer not to. What’s more interesting than the bed, though, is the mini-fridge under the beat-down desk. You crouch down, open it up, and when the fridge light comes on, it’s like Mecca is staring you in the face, angelic radiance and all.  _There is liquor here._   
  
While Delta’s wiring traps you don’t understand, you’re taking inventory of what’s in here. No one’s touched this, and soon you’re lining up little bottles and freezing cans on top of the desk. Two Smirnoff, two Jack Daniels, two Bombay Sapphire, two Bacardi, two Jose Cuervo, two Coke, two Diet Coke, two Pepsi – if it wouldn’t break the window, you’d toss it right out of the room – two club sodas, two Sprites – oh, God, this really is Nirvana, there’s Tab in here.  _Two_  of them. “I  _like_  this place,” you let out.   
  
“Yes, this will be an adequate place to stay.” What is that he’s wiring, goddamn C4? Where the hell did he get that stuff? “There is only once place to sleep.”   
  
“Thanks, Captain Obvious.”   
  
“My name is Delta.”   
  
You edit your mental note for him: not only does he not have a sense of humor, but he also doesn’t understand sarcasm. At least he’s capable. “What do you want to do about it?”   
  
“I am not uncomfortable sharing sleeping quarters,” Delta offers.   
  
“Good, ‘cause I didn’t want to sleep out in the car.” You pop the tab on the Tab, guzzle it down. God, it tastes so much better cold, and the fizz buzzes across your tongue. It’s a near-orgasmic experience. You don’t want to think about when the last time you had sex was, if having a simple soda gets you this close to getting off. You have company, so you try not to belch, but you still end up covering your mouth with the back of your hand once the carbonation gets the best of you.   
  
Delta looks at you like you’ve grown a second head. “You believed I would leave you outside and in danger while I had the opportunity to sleep soundly?”   
  
“Well, yeah.” You’ve had guys that hung you out to dry before. “You trust me enough to actually let me sleep in the same room with you? You just met me today.”   
  
“You chose to help me. You allowed me to drive your vehicle, which I know from experience is difficult.” He fixes you with his eyes, and you’re sunk. “I feel it benefits neither of us to regard each other warily. We would do best to conserve our energy and cease regarding one another with suspicion.”   
  
“So you’re not going to stick me and bleed me out in my sleep?”   
  
“You have traveled with people who have attempted to do this to you?”   
  
“You’ve never met Tex.” You’d slept with your shotgun every night when you were with her. She’d have fucked you somehow, either literally or over, and you weren’t interested in either.   
  
“I will make you a promise.” He hasn’t broken eye contact with you yet. “I will not betray you. I will travel with you as long as you will have me.”   
  
“Better get used to me, then, ‘cause I don’t wanna lose you.” Delta’s the best thing that’s happened to you since you left South Dakota. You only realize how sappy that sounds once it comes out of your mouth, and it’s not like you can just cram the words back in and pretend you didn’t say them. This is getting kinda personal. You don’t know if you’re okay with this.   
  
You cope by breaking the seal on the Bombay Sapphire and snapping open a Sprite. Delta takes the Sprite from your hand, and his fingertips touch your knuckles for the briefest moment before your brain turns back on and you realize he wants you to hand it over. You let him have it – you know you can take the gin neat if you have to.   
  
It’s definitely not time to start talking about feelings or anything like that. Still, at least the silence with this one is halfway comfortable, now that you’ve established that neither of you particularly wants to kill the other one any time soon.   
  
You’re actually able to fall asleep tonight, and you’re only nudged halfway out of unconsciousness when Delta crawls into bed beside you.


	3. Chapter 3

You jolt out of sleep the second the sun hits your eye, and you don’t realize you hit Delta in the face until he lets out a primal yell and reaches for his pistol. Before you’re even awake, you have a laser sight aimed right between your eyes. You hold your hands up, scream “whoa!” a few times, but it still doesn’t get the officer to back down. His stare this morning is cold and penetrating. Both of you are breathing hard, fighting off the effects of adrenaline in your system.   
  
You’ve just resigned yourself to the fact that  _you are about to die_  when Delta puts the safety back on his sidearm and lays it back down on the shabby nightstand. There’s a Gideon Bible lying open there, most of the weight at the front. You wonder who last stayed there and left it at Revelation – it’s a very Washington thing to do, but the chance he stayed here, in this same room, is so slim that it’s not worth it to even entertain the possibility. Once you catch your breath, you roll over onto your elbow and reach out to touch Delta on the arm. He’s shirtless – and the movement of his muscles under his skin is mesmerizing. This kid is a wonder. “I’m sorry,” comes out of your parched mouth. Bad idea to drink last night – the last thing you need is a hangover to distract you from the situation at hand.   
  
“Apology accepted.” Delta actually sounds embarrassed, and he won’t quite meet your eye. “I regret reaching for my firearm before ascertaining that your intention was harmless.”   
  
“It’s okay.” It’s kind of  _not okay_ , because you’re not sure you’re ever going to get those ten years added back onto your life, but at the same time, at least he didn’t pull the trigger on you. “Shower yet?” Not like you have to ask – his hair’s still tangled with zombie juice – but you hope it serves as a reminder that he needs to have a little hygiene now that he’s traveling with someone.   
  
“I have only just awoken.” The way he says it, you think he might be picking up the ability to tease and joke, but the delivery is still weighty. “Do not leave the room. The traps are not engineered to distinguish between entry and exit.”   
  
“Roger.” You give him a lazy salute, then collapse back onto the bed. That wasn’t among your top ten ways to wake up. And now you can’t even get food until Delta decides it’s time to go. The sound of the shower running is like pounding in your head, and you reach for one of the now-warm Tabs on the desk so you can at least pretend to be awake.   
  
Delta doesn’t even dress before he’s disabling his explosives, and it’s hard for you to divert your attention away from the way his towel is knotted around his waist. It’s been far too long since you’ve gotten laid; in your defense, it hasn’t exactly been the first thing on your mind for a while now. And it’s not like you’re in a state where you’re comfortable being naked around somebody else. You’ve picked up more than your fair share of scars since you entered into this ridiculous zombie war, and even though most of them can be hidden by clothing, your face still looks hideous.   
  
At least the shower helps clear your head a little. By the time you get out, you see Delta’s set up a pathetic attempt at breakfast, leaving two protein bars on each side of the bed. The kid himself is nowhere to be found. Knowing him, he’s probably itemizing and organizing whatever you’ve thrown in the back of your truck. You’ve been wondering whether you’re low on ammo, so it’s nice to know that there’s someone else to take care of the numbers for you.   
  
For now. You’re not about to let this be a permanent thing, no matter what you said last night. It’s best not to get too attached – though you could see yourself with this kid for a good long time, it’s only going to set your expectations too high. You’re inevitably going to end up with your hopes dashed. Somehow or another, Delta’s going to leave: either he’s going to get sick of you, or he’s going to get himself killed. That’s how it works in a wasteland.   
  
This time, at least, he comes back. Sure enough, he’s clutching a notepad in his right hand, writing with his left. “I have been taking an inventory of our current supplies.” He rips a page from his pad and holds it out to you. “This is a list of items we may need in the near future.”   
  
You fist the paper roughly out of his hands. His handwriting is cramped and small, but still neat and precise. This list is exhaustive. Not only does it list what you need, but how much of it. There’s things on here you didn’t even think of – which is pretty unusual for a survivor.   
  
It’s dawning on you how much you need this kid, and you haven’t even known him for twenty-four hours.   
  
You rip open the packaging on your breakfast with your teeth, then gnaw off a huge chunk. “Scho where d’you think we’re gonna find all thisch?” you slur around your mouthful.   
  
Delta’s eyes narrow. “I realize that you may not have been traveling with someone else for some time before yesterday, but common courtesy will always be appreciated.”   
  
“Fine, Miss Manners,” you say after you swallow. When Delta opens his mouth, you know he’s going to scold you again, so you just talk straight over it. “It’s a joke, Dee. Now. Let’s start over. Where do you think we’re going to find this stuff?”   
  
“I have access to government locations where there should be stockpiles of weaponry that are not normally available to civilians.” Yes, you are definitely in love with this kid, if the way your heart’s beating is any indication. “There should be sufficient weaponry and ammunition to keep us well-stocked past our journey to New York.”   
  
“Wait, you’re actually going to bum around with me after we’re done with our little trip?”   
  
Delta’s actually kind of cute when he looks at you like you’re stupid. “You are the best traveling companion I have found to date. I do not enjoy repeating myself, but I will say this again: I will stay with you as long as you will have me.”   
  
“All right, fine.” You smile at him before you bury your expression in another bite of your breakfast. It’s heartwarming, how badly he wants to be with you. Maybe you can actually feel normal with another human being in your life again, even if the fear of losing them may never leave you entirely. “I can’t be the best guy you’ve found. I mean, look at me.” You gesture at the mangled side of your face with your protein bar.   
  
“That statement was not intended as flattery but rather fact,” Delta says, unwrapping his breakfast with long, slender fingers. “We have been able to naturally coordinate our assaults, which is a trait I have found in no one else.”   
  
So he’d noticed it too. Interesting. Instead of commenting on it, though, you turn back to the list again. “Think we’ll find any grocery stores that are actually stocked?”   
  
“The chance of finding one untouched is slim. However, there are still food products that are palatable and safe to ingest at most supermarkets I have come across thus far.”   
  
You raise an eyebrow at him. “You know how to cook?”   
  
There he goes again, with the looking at you like you’ve sprouted horns in the last ten seconds. “I am trained in survivalist techniques. I prefer processed and quality-controlled sustenance over taking my nourishment directly from the source, but whatever the case, I can more than likely prepare something you would find pleasant.”   
  
“So that’s a yes.” Delta’s so long-winded you don’t understand how he can find time to stuff his face, but his protein bar is disappearing anyhow. “That’s it for the weapons and the food – the rest of this stuff I got no clue on. Sorry.”   
  
“I hope to acquire those once we reach our destination.” Delta gazes off into the corner of the room.   
  
It’s the first time you’ve seen him truly lost to his thoughts. “Didn’t mean to pry,” you apologize, filling your mouth with more food before you can fill it with your foot.   
  
Delta continues writing in his notebook, but there’s no more talking while you finish your meal. Once he’s finished, he closes the cover over his work. You’re probably never going to see what he’s written inside, but that doesn’t stop you from being curious. “My recommendation is that we start our day’s traveling as soon as possible.”   
  
“No kidding.” You translate before Delta can say anything about it. “That means I agree with you.” You swipe the rest of the alcohol displayed on the desk, just for safekeeping. “Let’s get a move on.”


	4. Chapter 4

The two of you spend the day driving.   
  
Even though you’d expected it to be a straight shot to the Big Apple, things haven’t worked out the way you planned. For one, there are gigantic groups of abandoned motor vehicles and airplanes on these highways, and the wreckage sometimes covers the entire pavement. Sometimes you can push a car or two out of the way and clear the road, but not always, and even then, that takes up a good chunk of time that could have been spent driving.   
  
You end up taking a lot of back roads to avoid some of these congestion points. Even Delta isn’t brave enough to run the SUV off the pavement; he probably knows how to change a tire about as well as you do, but you don’t know where you’d find new ones to replace any that you blew trying a stupid stunt like that. Back roads, though, mean a greater chance of running across a horde, which eats at even more of your travel time as you defend yourself or, occasionally, go for the zombie kill of the week.   
  
There’s no soundtrack for your gratuitous violence: there hasn’t been a reliable radio station in weeks. What little has come through while you’ve been making your way has been static, garbled, or a plea for help. For about thirty seconds, you caught the faint strain of the crescendo of the 1812 Overture before you lost the signal, and even though Delta tried to trace it back to the source, in the end he got nowhere. As far as the two of you know, there’s no one else in a hundred-mile radius.   
  
You don’t know if that’s comforting or terrifying.   
  
In all, what might have taken you two hours of travel time in a better life has turned into twelve. And not an exciting twelve hours, either. Most of today was taken up by arguing over how to read a map, whether the map was accurate, where you could trim time off your route, whose turn it was to drive, what bits of your food hoard Delta would let the two of you actually eat… Come to think of it, you spent most of the day fighting.   
  
At least you have someone next to you, even if he’s mostly taciturn and occasionally overaggressive with the car controls. For the most part, though, you can’t believe your good fortune in running across him yesterday. It’s not like you suddenly started believing in fate or destiny or kismet or anything like that once the dead started rising from their graves, but meeting Delta yesterday was such providence that you can’t believe it was just a happy accident. Some set of circumstances collided to bring the two of you together, and now you kinda don’t want him to leave.   
  
You can’t let yourself start thinking like this. It would be better if you could hate him, hold him in distrust and treat him with suspicion. He’s good for you, though. Delta makes you think twice before you do something potentially stupid out of instinct, and even though you resent him for it, it’s more exasperation than anger. He’s sharp, he’s talented, and he wants to stay with you. It’s easier just to go with your gut here and trust him, even though you’re sure it’s going to bite you in the ass.   
  
At least he seems to trust you. It’s much easier working with someone you know isn’t going to stab you in the back the first chance they get. Everything seems like it’s flowing smoother since he joined you in your trek, and he’s pretty easy to get along with. It’s hard to read him most of the time, but at least he doesn’t seem to be getting too attached on his end.   
  
There are still some subjects you have to step around carefully, but Delta extends the same courtesy to you. You’re not about to open up any time soon and neither is he, but you don’t need to psychoanalyze this kid in order to work with him effectively. You notice as the day wears on that you’re having fewer and fewer arguments, and not just because you’ve learned what battles to pick. It’s like with every minute you spend together, your trains of thought are straightening out and running parallel instead of crossing at every opportunity. --   
  
By the time you pack it in for the day, you don’t even have to speak to each other to coordinate your actions. He finds you a motel, you jimmy the lock with a spare hairpin, and you do your usual perimeter sweep before Delta starts rigging up the explosives again. You almost want to ask him whether that’ll blow up the two of you, too, but Delta’s got to be smarter than that. There’s no electricity here, so you don’t exactly understand how he’s going to get a charge into the blocks of C4, but you almost don’t want to know.   
  
The mini-fridge is empty, the air conditioning is shot, and there’s no running water, but it’s amazing what trust can do to your sleep habits. It’s the simplest thing, now, to lie back and close your eyes, and even though there’s two beds in this room, Delta chooses to fall in with you. The human comfort is nice.   
  
Best not to get used to it.


	5. Chapter 5

Your third day together dawns drizzly and cold. You’re not even halfway through Nebraska, and you’re not about to start taking bets on when you’re going to see the Iowa border. This is your third week in a row without real food for breakfast, and you’re getting sick of eating out of cans. Apocalypse turns everyone into pessimists eventually.   
  
Except for Delta, it seems. The kid isn’t exactly perky, but he’s a pragmatist. He manages to find a use for everything, and somehow he’s able to show you the positive side of every setback. His meticulous schedule means you have to plan further out than two hours in the future; at first it aggravates you because you still don’t know for sure whether you’ll see that third hour or not, but you realize after a while that it’s the most Delta allows himself to hope. If he has plans for the next month, that means he has something to live for.   
  
It’s a strange feeling, having something to live for.   
  
Nebraska is even more abandoned than Colorado was. Maybe it’s because you’re not near any real population centers. You’re not used to so much open prairie – you grew up in a concrete jungle, the only amber waves made out of heat instead of grain. It’s disconcerting to see so much landscape around you, but it gives you a clear sight for miles around, so you can definitely see any attacks coming. Or you would, if the weather would cooperate today.   
  
Ever since the outbreak happened, you’ve been relying more on the weather to determine what you’re doing. It amazes you to see Delta so resolved to keep going even in the face of a storm like this. It’s probably tornado season, but that doesn’t seem to faze this kid. Not even the random hail dents his determination.   
  
You’re pretty sure he’s close to losing his shit, though, when the transmission of the SUV unexpectedly jams and the car putters to a stop.   
  
The gruesome sound of grinding gears jerks you alert from your bored-passenger trance, and the smell coming from the engine is what you imagine infests the seventh circle of Hell. The wiper blades are still working, but that’s the only good part about this; otherwise, the world outside your windows is blurred through the driving rain pouring down the glass in a solid sheet. When you look over to Delta, he’s staring at the wheel under his hands like it personally betrayed him.   
  
You can’t think of anything to say. Not only did the worst just happen, but it just happened at the worst possible time. There’s no way you’re getting out in that weather, even though you’d love to see Delta drenched to the bone.   
  
Delta kills the engine. He looks like he’s about to cry, if the subtle twitch haunting the corner of his mouth is any indication. You almost can’t hear his whisper under the raindrops pounding the roof of the car. “We will have to acquire a new vehicle.”   
  
You long to snap back with “Tell me something I don’t know,” but you’re not mad at him, just the situation, and he wouldn’t appreciate the sarcasm anyhow. Instead, you kick your seat back again, and this time, it actually does break with the ugly sound of snapping metal. “Nothing to do now but wait it out,” you drawl, more laid-back than you actually feel. “We can hole up here for a while. No sense in getting out there to look for someplace new while it’s still coming down like this.”   
  
“This storm may not abate until nightfall,” Delta points out.   
  
You shrug before putting your hands behind your head. “I’ve spent the night in this car before.”   
  
Delta doesn’t look impressed. “Statistically, the likelihood of surviving a direct attack by a horde in a broken-down vehicle is –”   
  
“Never tell me the odds.” Doesn’t this kid believe in luck? “Besides, this’ll probably blow over soon enough, and we probably won’t have to walk that far to find another car to take.” The issue was getting all the stuff out of his trunk and getting it into another car.   
  
Delta’s already one step ahead of you. “I have additional bags collapsed in my belongings.”   
  
This kid thinks of everything, and your appreciation for his foresight threatens to rip apart your ventricles – or at least you assume that’s what the feeling in your chest means. “Have a pack of cards or something?”   
  
“I hardly think this is an appropriate time to divert our attention to an activity meant to pass the time,” Delta huffs.   
  
Definitely pissy about losing the car, then. This is the angriest you’ve seen him. “Come on,” you encourage him, “it’s not going to hurt anything if we just play a few games. I don’t think we’ll get attacked in this weather.”   
  
This time, the look Delta shoots you isn’t making fun of your stupidity: on the contrary, he looks almost impressed. “You have also noted that the zombies are getting more intelligent.”   
  
“Well, it’s like survival of the fittest, know what I mean?” And before you can get a rein on your tongue, you’re spilling out all your best theories and strategies to this kid you barely know. “It’s like with us – the only ones who have been able to make it so far, we’re all aggressive, don’t have any problems with shooting things that look human, try not to trust anyone. We were all loners, and it’s working out for us now. It’s gotta be the same with them. D’you think they actually act the same as they were, before?”   
  
Delta actually looks like he’s taking you seriously. “I would assume that basic traits are retained through the metamorphosis,” he mulls. “For instance, physical attributes largely remain unchanged, deterioration aside.”   
  
“So the ones who were smarter before the change set in, maybe they held onto that.” Your stomach clenches. “They’ve probably figured out how to hunt in packs. When the outbreak started, they were loners and we were the ones clumping in groups.”   
  
“They do seem to demonstrate a basic intelligence level congruent with higher primates, if not humans,” Delta admits.   
  
You don’t like that he’s agreeing with you – that means that your worst fears are probably true. “You think they’ve learned how to organize? What if they have leaders?”   
  
“I encountered a horde ten days ago with a clearly designated alpha male.” Delta sucks his lip in between his teeth, and you’re mesmerized when he starts worrying it gently. “The group was small, but they acted much like a wolf pack.”   
  
Now you’re getting somewhere. You offered your theories first, Delta shared his deductions with you, and you feel like you’re on the cusp of discovering something great. “How do you think it works, the transition?”   
  
“I have my suspicions.” Delta takes his hands off the wheel, clutching the gearshift with one and using the other to cradle his chin as he looks out the driver’s side window.   
  
You were wrong. He doesn’t seem to feel like sharing any more. You’re not sure whether you should apologize or just ignore the gigantic firewall he’s just put up, so you compromise, reaching out to cover his hand with your own. “Well, I mean,” you splutter, trying to fill the awkward silence Delta left in the car, “do you think it’s like a virus kind of thing, or brain rot, or is it blood-borne, or are some people immune, or what?”   
  
Delta turns back to face you, his green eyes sharp as they read your expression. “Is this why we are traveling to New York City?”   
  
So he’s heard the same rumors you have. They say the outbreak started in the city. They say the Center for Disease Control is bunkered down below the subway lines, waiting out the outbreak for the next two years until their attempts to control it are a success. They say there’s a huge colony of survivors in one of the lesser-known skyscrapers. They say there are answers, if you know where to look. Of course, you don’t want Delta to know any of this, so you fix him with the best back-off stare you can manufacture. “I don’t need to explain myself to you.”   
  
The atmosphere in the car feels tense and awkward again. You’re still looking at each other heatedly, and Delta’s hand is still beneath yours. You both pull your hands back at the same time, glare out your side of the car. This is  _not_  how you wanted to spend your day. Eventually Delta breaks the silence. “How long do you wish to wait until we change vehicles?”   
  
“I’m not getting out in that,” you grumble at the rain on your window.   
  
“I dislike the concept of remaining in one place for an extended period of time.”   
  
So he’s a paranoid freak. That’s fine – sometimes paranoia is what allows you to survive in a world like this. At the same time, it can get kind of annoying after a while, and you don’t feel like indulging it right now. “What did we just go over? The zombies are probably taking shelter same as us. Nobody likes soggy food.”   
  
“What do you suggest we do in the meantime?”   
  
“Well, you don’t want to play cards, and I don’t much feel like talking,” you snark back. “And personally, I’m bored outta my gourd.”   
  
“I can think of several other activities we could indulge in,” Delta goads you, “but more than likely you will find none of them acceptable.”   
  
“So we’re just going to stay in this car and stare at each other until it stops raining?” You cross your arms, your nostrils flaring with a snorting laugh. Come to think of it, you don’t really mind staring at Delta, but not when he’s staring back at you like that, like he’d rather decapitate you than spend another minute in your company.   
  
His look softens just when you’re thinking that, though. It’s hard to keep your heart in straight when he does that. Maybe it’s just that you haven’t spent enough time around other people lately, maybe it’s that you haven’t gotten any since – you don’t even want to think about it – but you could do more than just put up with Delta. You could do a  _lot_  more. And you could do it  _right now._   
  
Once again, Delta has that creepy-cool way of reading your thoughts, and you end up launching yourselves at each other at the same time, your faces meeting over the gearshift and your lips crashing together with enough force to make your teeth crack together. Delta’s hands fist in your hair, and you frame his face with your palms, trying to taste the inside of his mouth. When his tongue slides across yours, you’re certain that, short of Tab, this is the best flavor in the world. You only wish you could kiss him more fiercely, and the second you change the set of your lips, Delta runs his tongue across your upper lip and sucks your lower between his teeth.   
  
You moan, the sound rumbling in your chest, and scoot closer in your seat, trying to get as close as you can with the divider between you. Delta smells like motel soap and blood and engine grease, and you want to breathe in that smell forever. And he still hasn’t let you go. Regardless of who started it, it’s him that’s keeping it going, kissing you over and over like you’re the last man on earth.   
  
By the time Delta pulls away and rests his forehead on yours, the rain has slowed to a drizzle hovering in fog droplets. The car’s quieter than it was, but it’s not an uncomfortable silence, because you can hear your heartbeat in your ears, and the way Delta licks his lips is nearly audible. Those green eyes are downcast, but even half-lidded they have a way of capturing your interest and never letting you go.   
  
Delta takes his hands out of your hair; you let go of his face. That couldn’t have lasted longer than three minutes, but somehow you crossed more lines in the last three minutes than you have in the past three days. You can’t quite look at him – you’re afraid he’ll notice the color creeping into your face – and so instead you scan the landscape. “Now’s as good a time as any,” you say off-handedly, trying to ignore the frantic pounding in your chest.   
  
“Now is  _always_  the best time,” Delta says firmly. You can tell that’s his personal motto, and your mouth quirks up in a small smile. He’s cute without even trying.   
  
Delta helps you pack up your things but won’t help you carry them. The air outside the car is thick with humidity and clings coldly to your skin and clothes, but within a mile you’re able to find another SUV that’s in good condition. This one’s an upgrade: you’ve gone from a Jeep Grand Cherokee to a Cadillac Escalade. The doors are unlocked, so Delta starts loading your equipment in the back after folding down the collapsible seats, but you’re still not completely on board with this being the right car for you. “There’s no keys in the ignition.”   
  
“You have no knowledge of how to trigger the ignition sequence without a key?” The look on Delta’s face is concerned. Did he just assume you’d know?   
  
“Well, not for this model,” you bluff. It should be easy enough to figure out. You’ve hot-wired cars before, but they were always rusty junkers, and it was always for someone else. If you have to jump this one, you don’t want to have to take responsibility if it ends up failing on the two of you later. “Get me access to the steering column and I should be able to make something work,” you compromise.   
  
Twenty minutes later, after a frantic prayer you won’t get electrocuted, you’re back in business, and business is good. The rest of the day passes much like any other in a zombie apocalypse: arguments, sullen periods of silence, violent rampages against hordes of the undead.   
  
Delta starts getting twitchy by the time the sun’s about to go down, and you don’t blame him. You’re in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, without a single motel in sight. There’s residences, sure, but you’re not certain that they’re safe, and you don’t know if Delta’s comfortable taking a risk like that or if he’d rather sleep in the Escalade. He ends up pulling in the driveway of a two-story whitewashed farmhouse, though, and you think he’s made a good choice.   
  
His traps are a little more elaborate tonight, but you still don’t feel comfortable enough to rest. While Delta’s curled up against your side like an overeager kitten, you have an arm slung over him so you can still hold onto your shotgun in your sleep – you don’t like the thought that the zombies may have taught themselves to climb stairs.   
  
You don’t want to bring up that moment of weakness any more than he does. It’s better to pretend it never happened, even as you’re pressing your lips against Delta’s hairline in his sleep and whispering to him softly that you’ll be there for him no matter what happens.


	6. Chapter 6

Your route is about to take you through a major city – major in this sense meaning that there is actually a cluster of buildings bigger than a general store, a post office, and a gas station. You’re convinced that Lincoln, Nebraska isn’t going to be running over with the undead, but Delta thinks otherwise. After about an hour of arguing over it, you compromise: you’ll check it out, and if it’s too dangerous, you’ll back out and go around. You’ll probably be to Omaha by the end of the day, but you’ll have to stay somewhere outside the city limits – that’s definitely too big of a city to risk it.   
  
You hit Lincoln right after lunch, and you immediately regret having eaten. The stench of rotting flesh under the day’s brutal sun is enough to turn anyone’s stomach. Delta brings out a bandana and knots it behind his head, cloth covering his nose and mouth to keep the smell from getting through, and you mirror his actions.   
  
It’s a good idea to at least go through here and see if there’s anything useful to glean, whether it’s information or supplies. Wherever there’s a particularly bad spot, Delta stops to examine the spot. After a while, you realize that he’s collecting anything that might have any clues: computers, hard drives, camcorders, digital cameras, paper journals.   
  
There’s one diary in here that’s in a candy-pink color, the front decorated with Pinkie Pie riding down a rainbow. It’s locked, but like any child’s diary, it’s easy to crack. When you see the handwriting inside, you can feel the walls around your heart start to crumble. The first page tells you that this girl’s name was Stephanie and she got this for her seventh birthday. You flick through it quickly – every day she wrote in here, about two pages of shaky, loopy child’s handwriting – and then the diary stops abruptly three-quarters of the way through. The last entry was three months ago, just two words: “I’m scared.”   
  
Delta asks if you want to leave. You nod your head and wait until he turns around to wipe your eyes on the back of your hand.   
  
As you move through the population centers, you see the same patterns you’ve noticed in every other city you’ve been through. Hospitals are a mess – that was usually where the outbreak started, what with morticians insisting on inspecting every fresh corpse, emergency room technicians frantically trying to stop the onset of the disease they couldn’t control, and doctors trying to isolate the mechanism so they could make an attempt at finding a cure. What usually happened was brutal, and Lincoln is no exception. You and Delta pick your way through corpses lucky enough not to be turned into ghouls, pinching your noses even through your makeshift gas masks. There’s medicines here, enough to make a fortune if they were still measured in dollars instead of in goods, and Delta fills a backpack with compounds you can’t even pronounce.   
  
There seems to be a church on every other street corner. They’ve all been totally desecrated. Parishioners desperately praying for redemption tended to crowd in at the first sign of apocalypse, and any group of defenseless people was a magnet for zombies. Chapels turned into abattoirs. The lucky few were sent to their God just a little earlier. The not-so-lucky ones lived through the infection before they succumbed to the sickness. There’s nothing of value to you in there that you can’t just as easily get somewhere else. Besides, you have no great fondness for religion, not after living through what you’ve seen.   
  
Most of the grocery stores are picked clean, but you and Delta manage to find enough mixed canned goods to replace the ones you’ve gone through so far on your journey. The entire time you’re packing things into boxes, Delta’s nattering on and on about keeping a balanced diet and getting your vitamins and staying physically fit, and it just makes you want to reach out and fluff his hair. He’s so motherly; it’s cute on someone his age.   
  
On your way out of town, you suggest stopping by the police stations, but Delta wisely points out that there will be mobs of bodies outside those buildings, too. You have no particular interest in wading knee-deep in corpses again, especially when you can just as easily find guns and ammo at the military facility Delta promised you, but you have to make sure that he doesn’t want whatever 911 logs he could find inside.   
  
Delta begrudgingly stops, but he’s back out again in five minutes, empty-handed. The way he peels away from the curb betrays how much he’s upset by whatever he found in there – that, and the cold anger practically radiating from his shoulders. You don’t expect him to volunteer, but he starts ranting as soon as you hit open road again, as if he’d been afraid of being overheard by the dead. “There was nothing of use for me inside. No 911 records, no outline for containment, no information whatsoever. Someone was there before us. Someone purposefully censored that information.” He’s shaking, but his voice still sounds restrained.   
  
He’s hitting a hundred twenty miles an hour in this thing, and you get to Omaha far before you planned. Kid’s so distracted that he just pulls up to the first motel chain he sees – at least this particular franchise has second-story rooms available, and you’ll always take stairs over no stairs. He doesn’t leave the car while you break in, and you clumsily imitate his traps. When you glance down through the windshield, you can see him going through his newly-acquired material and making his own notes.   
  
Eventually he brings his research inside and spreads it out across the floor. You fall asleep with the lights on, and you don’t know if he ever comes to bed.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s a tense next two days, but they pass much the same as before. The freeways are choked, you try to avoid large population centers, and there’s hordes to fight off, but it’s nothing the two of you can’t handle. There’s something Delta’s not talking about, though, and you’re not sure you want to press him on what it might be.   
  
By the third day, you’re frustrated with his reticence, and so when he takes an exit you weren’t exactly planning on, you end up blowing up at him. “Where the hell are you going?”   
  
“We are making an unscheduled stop in Peoria.”   
  
“What the hell’s in Peoria that’s so important?” You cross your arms and put your feet up on the dashboard – he hates it when you do that, so you hope he’ll give you an answer in return for your courtesy. “Do you know something I don’t?”   
  
“There is supposedly a stockade of weapons there.”   
  
“Never heard of a military base near Peoria.”   
  
“This is a civilian armory.”   
  
“Sounds like a waste of gas to me,” you comment, but you take your feet down from the dashboard, at least. “Catch anything on the radio?”   
  
“The stockade is broadcasting a signal, though it comes through only weakly.” Delta gestures to his notebook, which he’s left open behind his seat. “I have transcribed all that I was able to hear. There is an entertainment broadcast, but every seven minutes it is interrupted with a message that is forty-five seconds long.”   
  
You grab at the notebook – finally, an opportunity to read what Delta’s been doing all this time. “To all survivors,” you read from the page. “Peoria is a safe alternative to constant travel. We have enough food, water, weapons, and shelter for the population of a small Midwestern city. We are broadcasting from the Civic Center, where a crew will meet you on arrival. Remember: no one’s a stranger. This message was recorded on the first of April.” At least, you think that’s what it said. Delta’s handwriting is pretty, but not exactly easily decipherable. “Listen, did you ever think that this might be a trap?”   
  
“Why would someone go to the trouble of creating a broadcast in order to lure in a victim?”   
  
“Because people from the outside have been stockpiling supplies for themselves, and if these schmucks take them hostage, they’ll get to steal whatever they want and then turn out the survivors once they pick them clean.” You shrug, throwing the notebook back where it came from. “That’s what I’d do if I holed myself up – get people to go out hunting and gathering for me, and when they realized I was just stealing from them, get more dupes to play the game.”   
  
Delta slams on the brakes, and you come to a screeching halt in the middle of the highway. When he turns to look at you, there is a eureka-moment look on his face. “York, your lateral thinking, while it follows no given rules of logic, still manages to come to useful conclusions.”   
  
It’s your turn to gape at him. “Is that a compliment?”   
  
Delta starts the Escalade going again, but he’s not as rough with the handling as usual. He’s biting his lip, and there’s a little color rising in his cheeks. “It was a conclusion I may not have reached myself.”   
  
“So what’s your verdict?”   
  
The kid’s silent for a good two minutes, probably making a pro-con list in his head for each possible decision point. Eventually he nods once, a sharp up-and-down of his chin. “We spring their trap.”   
  
“How?” You’d like to do it, you just don’t know of a way.   
  
“We will allow ourselves to be taken in. When we enter the Civic Center, we will only bring those belongings that we can afford to lose. There is a chance that there are others who are staying at the compound involuntarily, and we may be able to free these hostages.”   
  
Your stomach clenches as you realize that he’s probably right about that prisoner thing. It’s no longer a question of if. “When will we be in range?”


	8. Chapter 8

Four hours later, you have your belongings covered with dark tarps and you’re leaving the Escalade on one of the middle levels of a relatively undamaged parking garage. You don’t like the idea of going on foot, but Delta points out that bringing the car will only get it taken away from you. At least you’re traveling light – nothing more than a backpack’s worth of supplies. You just hope they don’t realize it’s a trap.   
  
You’re greeted amicably enough, and you want to turn to Delta and tell him he’s wrong as some guy in a dark green shirt drives you to what he calls the rendezvous point, but as it turns out, Delta was right after all: once you get there, your driver and his friend, a guy in a white wifebeater, are taking away your rucksacks and rifling through it for anything useful. “Sorry, mate,” the guy in white mocks them, showing off his South African accent – what the hell is he doing in Peoria?   
  
Just like Delta predicted, the two of you are taken hostage at gunpoint. At least the bunker they take you to is pretty well fortified. If you wanted to stay here, it would be a pretty good place.   
  
You can tell Delta is taking a mental inventory even as they frog-march the two of you to a containment area; by now, he’s probably itemized just how many guns, just how much ammo, just what kind of food these guys have, and how much the two of you can get away with stealing. They probably don’t realize who they’ve taken hostage – effectively the smartest containment officer you’ve ever met, plus someone whose hobby is breaking into and out of fortifications.   
  
What throws a wrench into your plans is who else is down here. There’s two other guys sitting at the table in your little holding room, and you feel like you know them from somewhere, but you can’t place their faces. On the other hand, Delta seems to know exactly who these two are, and he runs forward to clutch the dark-skinned one in a tight, brotherly embrace. Oh, right. That must be Sigma, the one he said was Egyptian-American. And the guy next to him who’s built like a tank has to be Maine. You approach the guy and hold out your hand to shake.   
  
This Maine guy’s a chummy sort, and he nearly wrenches your arm off with the eagerness of his handshake. It isn’t long before Delta and Sigma are chatting away with one another. Meanwhile, you’re over here with this stranger, trying to think of something to say. “This is the most talkative I’ve ever seen him.” You decide to shut your mouth before you think out loud again.   
  
“Same,” Maine notes.   
  
“You know Delta?” It’ll be nice to get an outside rating on how well you chose your traveling companion.   
  
“Last saw him near Albuquerque.” At least that matches up with what Delta told you, and you make yet another mental note for his file: Delta has not once lied to you. It’s a nice trait to have in someone you’re supposed to trust. “He’s an analytical little spitfuck. Sigma likes him, but he gets my veto.”   
  
You shrug noncommittally. “Seems fine to me.”   
  
“How long the two of you been traveling together?”   
  
“’Bout a week.” You don’t know exactly why you’re opening up to this guy, but you feel like you have to. It’s something to fill that uncomfortable silence. Besides, this is nice and non-personal. Talking about your travel plans is almost like talking about the weather, because most people you’ve met go wherever the wind takes them. “He doesn’t seem so bad to me.”   
  
“He kinda sours on you after a while.” Maine doesn’t seem too bent out of shape about it, though.   
  
“So, uh.” There’s a fine line between needing information and wanting to respect someone else’s personal space, but this guy seems laid-back enough to give you the lowdown without clamping down on you. “How’d you end up here? I mean, this is a long way from New Mexico.”   
  
“We were on our way back to California.” That doesn’t make any sense to you; you fix him with a hard stare. “In a roundabout sorta way,” Maine amends. “We go back and forth between vacation homes on either coast. Kinda fun to get into all those places you used to see on MTV Cribs. Anyway, we got the signal same as anybody else. I told Sigma he was paranoid for questioning it, but did you notice the date on it?”   
  
“April first.” It had been near the beginning of the outbreak, sure, but before life started going south, people used to pull tricks on that day. That, and start Internet production companies, but the former is more likely at this point.   
  
“They took all our things,” Maine continues. “Our food, our weapons, all the information Sigma had been able to gather. Gamma told us –”   
  
“Wait, Gamma?” You don’t mean to interrupt, but you have to know. “Isn’t he another of the containment officers?”   
  
“I asked him about it once. He lied straight to my face.” At a shuffling sound, Maine leaned closer, his voice dropping down into a harsh whisper. “Gamma’s the one in the green shirt. He recorded the message. He’s the one who lured us in.”   
  
“The honey for the flytrap,” you think aloud. “And the other one?”   
  
“Calls himself Wyoming, but I’m sure that’s an alias Gamma made for him. He sounds kinda…” Maine trails off. “Well, he’s not from around here, let’s just put it that way. Kind of a gigantic asshole, too.”   
  
“Naw, ya think?” It’s nice to talk to someone you can be sarcastic with, and you’re starting to understand what he means about Delta’s mannerisms. “I assume you don’t really want to be staying here.”   
  
“If we knew we could get food and guns and get out of their sight for longer than an hour…” Maine sighs, drawing a pattern on the table with a large finger. It takes you a few seconds to realize that he’s tracing you a map of the compound; when you catch his eye, he winks at you, but continues his griping conversation. “We tried to hoof it once, but they have a car, so it was no contest, really.”   
  
Delta turns from his conversation to look back to you. “Can you engineer a way to smuggle us out of this installation?”   
  
“What do you take me for?” At least they didn’t make you empty your pockets – you still have one of your lockpicking kits. “When do you want to leave?”   
  
“Yesterday,” Sigma pipes up.   
  
He doesn’t look any older than Delta, and his enthusiasm is so endearing that it makes you laugh out loud. It’s been so long since you’ve thought anything was legitimately funny that the sound comes out all wrong, and you end up choking on it. You turn to Delta. “Any input?”   
  
“I would prefer to leave as soon as possible. We will not have time to abscond with weapons if we wish to remain unseen.” He has that determined look on his face again.   
  
You pull him closer with an arm around his shoulder, put a hand on his knee as you whisper low into his ear. “What do we do with them once we’re outta here?”   
  
“We cannot bring them with us. Our travel plans are meant for a party of two.” He says it factually, but there’s a note of regret under his tone.   
  
“They’re headed west anyway.” You fall silent, but it’s more about taking in the soft scent of the blond curls tickling your nose than about not having anything to say. “Can we help them?”   
  
“We do not have much to give that we did not already sacrifice,” Delta hisses.   
  
“Just something to get them on their way again,” you insist. “They have nothing right now.”   
  
Delta gives it a moment of thought, resting his head on your shoulder. You can tell he’s doing some swift mental calculations to determine whether you can afford benevolence. It would be too easy for you to be cruel, to conserve your resources, to leave them to their own devices. Delta’s made you realize something, though: sometimes kindness can be worth it. Sometimes it’s okay to trust. When Delta speaks next, you can feel his lips moving against your throat. “We will have to stop and scavenge sooner than I have scheduled.”   
  
It’s not a no. You kiss him on the forehead. It feels good to be good. Even if you never see these two again, you’ll have the comfort of knowing that they didn’t go on their way unprepared. You look over your shoulder and see Maine and Sigma mirroring your pose. “You guys ready?”   
  
Maine grins at you wickedly. “I was born ready.”   
  
It takes you fifteen minutes to figure out the mechanisms holding the four of you in this chamber, and even once they’re busted, you can’t break your way out by yourself. Maine shoulders into the door with all his brawn and it comes free of its hinges. Sigma sneaks out first; from the hallway, you can hear the quiet chirr of a cooing mouse. It’s a signal, you realize when Maine gives you the all-clear.   
  
On your way out, you pass the one in the wifebeater; his shirt is now soaked with the blood leaking from his slit throat. Sigma is walking away, wiping a knife on his flannel shirt. “That’s not gonna be enough,” you call out to him. “You need to get rid of him.”   
  
“He just did,” Maine snips. His tone says  _what’s wrong with you?_   
  
“No, I mean, really make sure.” You really wish Delta wouldn’t look at you like that. “Anybody got any matches? Alcohol? A shovel, something.”   
  
“Are you intending to desecrate his corpse?” Even Delta sounds horrified.   
  
“When you put it that way, you make me sound like a terrible person,” you grumble. “His brain is still intact. He won’t rot for weeks. If the outbreak creeps in here, he’ll be just one more of those flesh-eating freaks.”   
  
“So what are you saying?” You jump in your skin – somehow Sigma managed to sneak up behind you on silent feet. He’s kind of creepy that way. You’re starting to question Maine’s judgment that Delta’s hard to deal with, because you know you wouldn’t be able to put up with Sigma for long.   
  
“Listen, I’ve seen this before.” Not like you want to talk about it, but if it’s going to convince them, then you have to share. You change some details – well, more like all the details – but the song remains the same. “One of the guys I left home with – he dropped dead one night. Asthma attack. Didn’t bring his inhaler.” God, you are a terrible liar. “Anyway. Not important. What I mean is – we left him behind, and he got back up. All because we decided to treat him with a little dignity.” You look from Maine to Delta to Sigma. You have a captive audience here, and you feel very put on the spot. “I know the only thing that separates us from them is our humanity. And that’s why I’m asking you to do this. Whatever he was to us alive, he deserves to die a person, not a monster.”   
  
The concrete walls of the compound seem to echo the sudden silence that falls over the four of you. Maine suddenly finds the floor very interesting. Sigma’s fidgeting. The only opinion you care about, though, is Delta’s, and when you look into his eyes, it’s just the two of you in that hallway. “He is correct,” he tells the other two, never looking away from you.   
  
“I’m sorry,” you blurt out, as if that makes this any easier. “I don’t want to do this either.”   
  
“I’ll do it,” Sigma says suddenly. He steps forward, bringing a lighter out of his pocket. “It’s my problem. My responsibility. My consequences.”   
  
“No,” Maine murmurs, reaching out to put a hand on Sigma’s shoulder. For a moment you think Maine will turn him away. Then he leans down to whisper into Sigma’s ear, and you can just catch what he’s saying. “You don’t have to do this alone.”   
  
“Alcohol,” Sigma murmurs back, flicking the lighter compulsively. “Alcohol.”   
  
Delta heads off, faster than you’ve ever seen him run before. You and Maine just look at each other. You can tell he’s emotionally attached to this kid and that he resents Delta more than just a little; it’s got to have something to do with how close Delta and Sigma used to be. Maybe now that you breached the subject of your past first, Delta will open up, but it’s not likely.   
  
Sigma reaches his hand up, and you don’t understand why until a bottle of whiskey flies into his palm. He doesn’t miss a beat before breaking the glass over Wyoming’s head, anointing him with the liquid inside, and before you can blink, his head is completely engulfed in flames. That’ll roast his brain for sure. He won’t be coming back.   
  
The four of you stare at the aftermath before you remember you’re trying to escape. “We have to leave.” If you were traveling with Washington, he would have yelled “Let’s go” three times by now.   
  
Delta takes Sigma’s hand, and an irrational flare of anger blooms in your chest. You sprint as fast as you can, and somehow you manage to beat Gamma to his own golf cart. What’s the first thing you do? You crash it into a wall. Not entirely on purpose, but it still does the job of taking it out of commission so Gamma can’t chase you in it. Eventually you find your way back to the Civic Center, and you take a moment to catch your breath before trekking back to your SUV at a more reasonable pace.   
  
“Really,” Maine insists as they follow you, “you don’t have to do this. We can find our own way.”   
  
“No, we have more than we can carry.” It’s not exactly true, but they need some help getting started. You’d give them the car if you could, but you and Delta need it. Besides, it’s not like Maine and Sigma have to get to California right away.   
  
Just before you get to the stairwell of the parking garage, Maine takes you aside with a hand to your shoulder, and you let Delta go ahead with Sigma. “You need to know,” he mutters through his teeth.   
  
“What the hell?” You shrug out from his grip.   
  
He just grabs your upper arm hard in his fist, holding you in place. “You’d better take care of him,” Maine grits out. “These officers – I don’t know what kind of training they had, but it ruined them. They’re amazing with the zombies, but if you try to get them to talk about themselves, they just shut down. I have no idea what Sigma thinks he’s running from, but he won’t let us stay in one place for too long.”   
  
“Delta doesn’t seem that bad,” you insist. “He wants to figure it out. If you want to come with us –”   
  
Maine huffs out a derisive laugh. “I’m not gonna waste my time chasing rainbows.” He lets go of your arm, turns to climb the stairwell.   
  
Rainbows are all you have left to chase. You have to know the answers, and New York City is your only lead. You have no choice but to go on. It feels helpless, though, and with every step you climb, your body feels heavier and heavier.   
  
When you get back to the car, Maine’s going through the supplies in your back seat. Delta doesn’t seem that concerned about it, which means he’s given Maine permission to skim off the top. You have the suspicion that it’s more about Sigma than anything else, especially since you find them deep in conversation, talking so fast you can barely distinguish single words. With every sentence, Sigma looks closer to bursting into tears, and eventually he pulls Delta close to him, buries his head in his shoulder, and makes a single, loud sob, practically screaming in anguish.   
  
You understand exactly what he’s going through. You’ve had to leave people before. Even Delta looks a little discomposed, his hand shaking as he pets Sigma’s back over and over, letting him cry into his shirt. Maine gives you a look after he slams the car door shut, a look that’s somehow both taunting and pitying.   
  
Delta eventually pries Sigma’s head out from the crook of his neck. You can’t hear what he’s saying, but you can read his lips. “Please be safe.”   
  
“Maine will take care of me.” Sigma sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself rather than reassure Delta. He sniffs a few times, wiping his nose on his sleeve, then gently disengages.   
  
Maine comes to his side to pry him away from Delta, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and kissing him on the temple. “I promise,” he murmurs into Sigma’s hair. “I will always be there.” Watching the two of them together makes your heart go a little sideways. The feeling gets twisted when Maine reaches out to tousle Delta’s hair. “Thanks, kid.”   
  
It’s as good a moment as any to intrude on their little family moment. “Don’t think a thing of it.” You don’t like Maine touching Delta like that, and sure enough, he draws his hand back once he hears your voice. “Good luck, you two.”   
  
Maine gives you a lazy salute; Sigma’s is a little sharper, and Delta mirrors his movement. When they turn their backs, you’re almost sad to lose them. This, right here, is why you can never get attached. You care too much.   
  
To hide your sudden onslaught of feeling, you try out that move Maine made on Sigma, pressing your lips in a long smear against Delta’s forehead and holding him close. To your surprise, Delta wraps both arms around your waist and squeezes you, hard. “I may never see them again,” he lets out in a shaky breath.   
  
You’re amazed at the kid in your arms – so different from the one you first met. It’s hard to believe this is the agent you met slaying the undead left and right. “They’ll be okay,” you whisper into his hair, your thumb rubbing little circles into his shoulder. “They know what they’re doing. We did all we could for them.” And that’s going to have to be good enough.


	9. Chapter 9

“Your conviction is admirable.”   
  
It comes out of nowhere, while Delta’s going through his intel and you’re absorbed in a card game for one. “What are you talking about?”   
  
His green eyes snap up and find yours. “Your decision to dispose of the corpse earlier today was correct. I acknowledge that this goes against the pre-outbreak moral code and that this choice must have been difficult for you.”   
  
“Oh.” You still feel awful about that, even if Delta endorses it. “Did you find something in your research about it or something?”   
  
“I am slowly putting together the pieces from what limited snatches of information I have been able to acquire,” he tells you. “You were correct in your assumption that the brain must be destroyed for the zombie to lose function.”   
  
“Yeah, and what else?” It’s exciting to be right, especially when you’re up against Delta. You lean over from your chair and try to trace Delta’s thought pattern through the arrangement of media radiating from his position on the floor.    
  
“From these logs, I have been able to chart the spread of the outbreak,” he says, unfolding a map. It shows off his color-coded concentric rings radiating from every major population center in the continental United States, and sure enough, the area around New York City is almost black with pigment. “This, however, tells me little about the mechanism by which the condition was passed from one individual to another. However, I managed to discover a thesis abstract in the Lincoln hospital that elaborates.”   
  
“All they told us was that we shouldn’t let them touch us.”   
  
“There is more.” He holds up a timeline. “The mechanism is that of a poison, and the symptoms run their course within twenty-four hours. The toxin is absorbed into the brain matter, causes exaggerated symptoms including increased rage and hysteria, and results in coma after fourteen hours. Death follows anywhere between hour eighteen and hour twenty-three. By the time twenty-four hours have passed, the affected individual is reanimated. The precise means by which the toxin does this is unknown, but it appears that it can affect even the recently deceased. Anyone whose physical brain remains functional may be brought back to life.”   
  
Being right doesn’t make it right, what you forced Sigma to do. “I don’t  _like_  mauling corpses to keep them down,” you insist, as if that will scrub the black mark off your conscience.   
  
“You have the strength of character to make the right decision instead of the easy decision.” Delta leans just that little bit closer to you, crawling up the side of your chair as if he wants to sit in your lap. “For this, I admire you.”   
  
“Whoa.” You flinch back, even as Delta continues to violate your personal space. “Are we getting into feelings here?”   
  
Delta pauses just as he rests his knee on your chair; your thighs are touching. “If you are uncomfortable with this –”   
  
“Stop. Please.” It doesn’t keep you from running your hand up Delta’s leg and resting it on his hip. “I can’t do this. We still have a week and a half until we get to where we’re going, and if – if I mess this up – if I get any closer to you –”   
  
“I will not leave.”   
  
“You don’t know that!”   
  
Delta draws back like your words physically hurt him. “Do you not trust me?”   
  
“Trust isn’t going to keep you from dying!” You can’t take those words back. For all you don’t want to talk about feelings, you seem to be full of them. If you give in, if you let yourself care about Delta like you want to, this will only end badly. “I’m sorry.” You seem to be saying that a lot lately, but this time, you reinforce your apology by running a hand slowly through Delta’s hair. “I want to trust you. I really do.”   
  
“Have I given you a reason to doubt me?” He reciprocates your touch by cradling the marred side of your face in his palm.   
  
No one has ever touched you like this. It makes you squirm in your seat, and not just from discomfort. “No,” you say softly, closing a finger and thumb around his small wrist and pulling his hand away from your scars. It’s both an answer to his question and a warning not to push you farther than you’re willing to go.   
  
For a moment, the spark goes out of Delta’s eyes. Then he climbs out of your lap, sinking back down to the floor. “What is it I must do,” he asks you, “to earn your good esteem?” You swear you can hear the hint of a tease under his tone.   
  
“You’re gonna have to be patient with me.” You’re only half-joking. To make up for your outburst, you run the instep of your foot up and down his back.   
  
He leans against your chair, resting his head on your knee. “We have ten days until we reach New York City. I do not intend on leaving you once we reach our destination. I have nothing but time.”   
  
He’s already working his way into your heart, and you wish you could hate him for that. As it is, you go back to your game of solitaire, but you don’t feel quite so alone.


	10. Chapter 10

Getting to Joliet feels like a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.   
  
You actually pass some other survivors on your way out of Peoria, and any traffic at all is still the most traffic you’ve seen in months. The most you can interact with these people is a quick up-nod while Delta breezes past them, but you always get some sort of response. One guy even flashes you the Vulcan “live long and prosper” sign, and you can’t help but return it. Explaining the gesture to Delta is interesting, but worth it: he insists on being able to do it himself, and when he can’t coordinate the action, you hold up your palm to his and show him where to separate his fingers.   
  
Delta takes you off the freeway around noon and proceeds to get the two of you lost for the rest of the afternoon. Finally you come across the factory south of town, designated by barbed wire and electrocuted fence lines. The sign out front reads “ammunition,” or at least that’s what you assume it says, because there’s zombie corpses draped across the whole thing.   
  
You have to leave the Escalade at the first gate, so you sling two empty duffel bags over your shoulder. Delta has to enter a different PIN at each successive barrier, but he can’t be the only one to know these codes. The armory might already be picked clean, for all you know, and so you can’t get your hopes up. With each fence you pass, you get a little more apprehensive. What if there’s other people using this place as their shelter?   
  
Delta disables the security on the warehouse doors, and you pull on one while he pushes it to the side. As you force your way in, fluorescent lights come to life, flickering on row by row and glowing stronger with time. This is as close to a theme park as you’re ever going to get in a zombie apocalypse. “I love you,” you mutter to Delta, hoping the kid didn’t hear it. Then, a little louder, “This is amazing. How did you know about this place?”   
  
“This is designated on my commission as the first place I should turn to for additional supplies.” Delta steps in slowly, his footsteps echoing in the gigantic hangar, and runs his hand along the butt-end of a row of rifles. “This storehouse appears to be untouched.”   
  
A smile spreads across your face. “Load me up.”   
  
You feel like a kid in a candy store, if by ‘kid’ you mean ‘full-grown man’ and by ‘candy store’ you mean ‘military-grade arsenal.’ Delta shares your enthusiasm, if his sudden vim is any indication; there’s a lightness in his step you haven’t seen before, and he’s even smiling, if you can call the tiny up-quirks at the corners of his mouth a smile. If he actually showed his emotions like a real human being, he’d probably be dancing and laughing.   
  
He ends up taking one of your bags for himself and sprinting ahead to one corner of the warehouse, and you chuckle as you watch him go. It’s nice to see him so enthusiastic about something besides hacking zombies to bits. Meanwhile, it gives you time to actually inventory what’s in front of you. You pick up the gun directly in front of you and squeeze the trigger experimentally; you’re so shocked by the report of rounds being fired that you hover inches off the ground for a few seconds. Whoever stocked this was especially stupid in storing them with magazines already preloaded, but it just means more fun for you. “Let’s see what you can do,” you whisper to the rifle in your hand.   
  
With a whoop, you open fire on the ceiling; the bullets take out a few of the lights, raining down a shower of sparks on you. Delta hollers at you from the other side of the warehouse, but you can’t really hear him until the burst-fire stops ricocheting against the metal roof. “Are you all right?”   
  
“Never been better.” You have to enjoy the little things in a post-apocalyptic zombie-ridden world, and in this case, the little things are bullets.   
  
Eventually the gun runs out, but there’s still a hammering sound echoing through the facility. Then there’s a small “heh” and the puttering starts again. “Heh heh.” There’s a full ten seconds of spray from Delta going full-auto and then a clattering when he throws his spent firearm to the floor. “I must admit,” he calls to you, and you can hear the grin in his voice, “this seemed illogical at first, but now I understand that this is an excellent method of stress release.”   
  
“Yeah.” You caress the stock of an AK-47 with your fingertips. “Yeah, it is.” It’s the second-best you’ve found.   
  
It’s hard to tell day from night when the building is this brightly lit, so the two of you end up going through every type of weapon in here one by one, testing it to see if it will fit your needs. Some of them fail your test, most of them are okay, but a select few of them give you a tingling feeling all down your spine when you put your finger to the trigger. Those are the ones you grab, taking ammunition from the extras.   
  
It’s not the most comfortable place to sleep, but at least Delta doesn’t need to set his traps tonight. You make a nest out of military-grade blankets in one of the corners of the warehouse, and without your customary shotgun in your grasp, Delta fits into your arms perfectly.


	11. Chapter 11

The days pass, each one much like the one before it. South Bend, Toledo, and Cleveland become nothing more to you than towns in your rearview mirror. The farther east you go, the more devastation you see, and when you correlate the destruction with the topography of Delta’s map, you realize that the earliest infections had radiated out from this way.   
  
Delta’s letting you drive while he does a bit of reading in the passenger seat. You’re jealous: you’ve never been able to do that without getting mildly carsick, plus you haven’t really been able to read since your left eye got messed up. It’s nice that he’s so distracted, though, because he doesn’t recognize it when you leave I-80 and jump onto I-70 instead. It’s only when he starts seeing the signs for Pittsburgh that he questions you. “Why are we taking this detour?”   
  
“I just want to see something.” More like some _one_ . Delta got to see people he knows, so why shouldn’t you? Washington – and Epsilon, you suppose – ought to have made it to the District of Columbia by now, and maybe they found some answers in the old government buildings that can give you some leads for once you get to the Big Apple.   
  
Of course, you can’t keep secrets from Delta. Even if he wouldn’t eventually pry them out of you by fixing you with his brilliant eyes and waiting for you to talk, he’d guess them and call it deductive reasoning. “The Capitol was not the first major metropolitan area to be hit by the outbreak.”   
  
“When we had a government, that’s where it was,” you remind him. “Do you think they still have the Cold War bunkers active?”   
  
“Our officials are more than likely in exile,” Delta muses. He likes to draw his lower lip into his mouth when he’s thinking, and it just makes you want to suck and nibble on it. You wonder how he would react to it and lose yourself to a daydream for a split-second before you realize he’s still trying to tell you something. “Reaching those bunkers is not advised – we would be detained for questioning, and we would receive no answers in return.”   
  
“I’m not interested in finding them,” you reassure Delta. “I’m more interested with whether they’d be out by now.”   
  
“The Cold War bunkers are fortified with enough supplies to outlast a fifty-year siege. I find it unlikely that anyone would choose to leave.” He chews his lip some more. “I wonder.”   
  
You know exactly where his mind is going: the original purpose of those bunkers was protection from radiation fallout. “Do you think any of those missiles are even active?”   
  
“A nuclear offensive against the zombies only requires one missile,” Delta points out.   
  
“So why haven’t they done it yet?” You tap your fingers on the steering wheel as you mull this over. “Is it because they just can’t make up their minds?” It wouldn’t surprise you – politicians have never been known for their expediency in making large-scale decisions.   
  
“There are several factors to take into consideration when ordering a nuclear strike. For instance, I doubt these bureaucrats have an accurate count of survivors or information of the ratio between surviving humans and zombies.” Delta flips through one of his notebooks, looking for something in particular, and he skims his finger across the page and underlines one sentence before he continues. “Radiation may not affect the zombies at all, and so they would be relying on the thermal effects of the bomb rather than the nuclear fallout. An atom bomb strike may not prove as effective as a simple air raid.”   
  
“So why haven’t they done it yet?” You haven’t seen any planes in the sky for months.   
  
“They may not have the supplies necessary. Alternately, they may be showing concern for the few uninfected citizens left. An air strike makes no discrimination between targets.” You start slowing the car; you know he doesn’t notice, because he just keeps rambling. “Alternatively, there may be gridlock in the underground Senate on whether this is an appropriate action to take. I find this much more plausible.”   
  
“Mm-hmm.” You’re stopped in front of a traffic snarl, so you hope he doesn’t think this is anything out of the ordinary.   
  
“The best course of action would be a retro-engineered bacterium that disposes of necrosis, but I find it unlikely that this could have been prepared in the few days before the outbreak consumed the country.” Delta blinks a few times, comes out of his thought-trance, and finally notices the environment around him. “We have stopped moving.”   
  
“Yeah. I was getting a little distracted.” It isn’t exactly a lie.   
  
“If you are currently unable to drive because of exhaustion or highway trance, may I suggest –”   
  
“Dee, you talk too much.” And before he can complain about the nickname, you pounce, leaning over into his side of the car to plant one on his mouth.   
  
There’s a little whimper stuck in the back of his throat, and you draw it out of him with your tongue, tracing the contours of the inside of his mouth. The sigh when you suck his lower lip between your teeth is so salacious it ought to be criminal. It takes him a moment, but then he’s just as enthusiastic about this as you are, one hand covering the left side of your face, the other cradling the back of your head. As if you wanted to pull away. You’ve wanted to do this since he tried to proposition you back in Peoria. Your hand palms its way down his chest, and he only kisses you harder when you grope at his thigh, your thumb dangerously close to his groin.   
  
It’s good, all of it, and you want nothing more than to push his seat back and take him like this, but your self-consciousness catches up to you and you have to pull away. Delta’s breath is as shaky as yours, and he keeps his face close to yours, nuzzling his nose in one of the gouged-out scars on the left side of your face. “Had to get that out of my system,” you apologize. You know it’s not going to be enough, but for now, it’s going to keep your head on straight enough to get to where you’re going.   
  
“I strongly encourage you to do that as often as you think it necessary,” Delta mumbles, his voice tremulous as you retreat back to your side of the car.   
  
You shake your head, put the car back in drive, and start off-roading it to get around the jumble of crashed cars in front of you. “I can’t get any closer to you.” Delta’s drawing you in like a moth to a flame, and the more you touch him, the closer you’re getting to being burned.   
  
“Cannot?” Delta asks pointedly, holding onto the Jesus Christ bar as you roll over some corpses. “Or will not?”   
  
You hate that he’s so perceptive. You keep your eyes on the road and your mind on the zombies in a frantic attempt to get rid of the tightness in your jeans.


	12. Chapter 12

All you wanted to do was stop in Bedford and find a place to rest before you get to the Capitol, but no, everything has to be complicated. In this case, complicated means “infested with the largest zombie horde you’ve ever seen,” and even Delta’s gaping at the crowd, open-mouthed. You don’t know if you can do this, even with the car at your disposal. Thankfully, these zombies don’t seem to have figured it out yet that motor vehicles can cause some serious harm.   
  
You turn to Delta, who’s counting on his fingers so swiftly that you can’t follow the motion of his hands. “What’s your rec?”   
  
“Rocket launchers, machine gun turrets, and a plow attachment to the front of this vehicle.” He looks over to you, face a mask of determination. “However, if you are asking what we can do with what we have, the answer is nothing.”   
  
“Oh, come on, we can do this, there’s only –” You look out to get a quick count; it’s hard in the twilight, and the street lights only illuminate so many of them. “A thousand or so of them, and two of us. That has to count for something, right?”   
  
“I am not certain that we have enough ammunition to accommodate a horde of this number.”   
  
“Of course we do,” you reassure him. “It’s the issue of aiming it.” You don’t want to give in yet. Besides, it’s been forever since you’ve been in a good zombie fight instead of picking them off from a distance. One of the first rules of a zombie apocalypse is “don’t be a hero”, but on occasion, you have to discharge all the excess testosterone in a way that actually helps thin the horde. “How many do you think you can get with the truck?”   
  
Delta mashes the gearshift down into fifth and revs the engine so loudly that it gets the attention of every zombie in a five-hundred-yard radius. “I will attempt to dispatch as many as I can by this method.”   
  
“Fair warning: I’m rolling down the window,” you call over to him. The throttle as he gets the car in motion practically throws you into the back seat, but it’s easier to grab your guns this way.   
  
It’s a bumpy ride, especially since the sounds of civilization seem to have drawn the entire horde towards you. Zombies are flying every which way, thumping against the side mirrors, falling under the tires, flying over the windshield and over the roof before landing with a bloody splat. Delta makes sure to go in reverse every so often and pick up the ones whose skulls weren’t absolutely pulverized by the impact. In a perverse way, this reminds you of household chores, of running a vacuum back and forth over the pavement to pick up all the grime, except instead of picking it out, you’re grinding it in.   
  
Aiming your shotgun while Delta’s driving like this turns out to be a little beyond your skill level, but at least the thing has stopping power when you miss the headshot. Even though you’re wasting some of your ammo by hitting them in the chest, it’s keeping them at far enough range that Delta only has to deal with a few at a time. Soon the car is filled with the smell and smoke of spent gunpowder, and you lose track of how many times you reload and how many crunch-squish sounds you’ve heard under the tires.   
  
They never seem to stop coming. Eventually they get smart enough to move out of the way when the Escalade comes charging at them. Not good, but you keep pumping out round after round of buckshot, hoping to slow the onslaught. “What now?” you yell over your shoulder, blowing off an ex-stripper’s face.   
  
“My recommendation is that we attempt to find some shelter.” Delta’s breathing hard. You hear him rummage in the backseat for firearms.   
  
“Sounds doable to me.” There’s time for you to catch your breath and reload. “Hotel around here?”   
  
Almost before the words are out of your mouth, Delta swings the car around and nearly throws you out of the window with the sudden G-force. The way he’s accelerating, you’re convinced he’s going to crash, and you’re right – he plows through the glass front of a hotel lobby and kills some of the car’s inertia by doing a few donuts on the carpet before coming to rest. You feel like you’re going to be sick, but at least the car doesn’t seem too damaged and you haven’t been physically injured. The horde is following you in here, shredding their limbs open on the shattered glass, and you barely have the presence of mind to grab a rucksack full of food and ammo before you abandon the car. “Elevator!” Delta screams at you, too panicked for a full sentence.   
  
The damn thing seems to be taking forever to come down from wherever it was; you and Delta put your backs to the doors and start blasting indiscriminately, taking down the closest first. You’re convinced you’re going to get taken when the elevator finally dings, and the two of you practically pull the doors open so you can get inside. By the time you punch the button to take you up to the top floor, the elevator doors are clamping shut around zombie arms, and they’re dismembered as the elevator climbs.   
  
You’re breathing hard, covered in blood, and your rifle’s out of ammo. You throw your things down to the floor at the same time as Delta abandons his firearm, and the plastic rattles against the marble tiles. The adrenaline in your system is still convincing you that you’re about to die, and it might not be wrong, because who knows if the zombies will be able to climb the stairs to the top floor? When you look over to Delta, his eyes are wide with fear, his hands speckled with gore and his hair dusty with gunpowder.   
  
Before you can think better of it, you launch yourself over to him and pin him against the elevator wall by crushing your mouth against his.   
  
Delta’s just as ferocious as you are, hooking a leg around your waist and pulling you even closer; the movement makes your hips grind together, and Delta mewls into your mouth when you push your tongue past his lips. Your hands are everywhere, grasping his ass, pulling at his knee, holding his jaw, running through his hair. It’s not enough. His heart is thumping up right against yours, the pace too fast, your blood too hot, lust infecting you from the inside out.   
  
You lick the blood off his neck, thrill at the taste of it on your tongue, nip at the hem of his turtleneck with your teeth. His hands are cool against your skin when he pushes your shirt off, and you finish the job while Delta strips. The elevator’s climbing and climbing, and you’re feeling more and more light-headed as you ascend ever higher. Delta’s hand grasps at you, and the purring growl out of your throat is absolutely animalistic as you mirror his action.   
  
The elevator dings and the doors open. Delta pushes you away with a foot on your hip; when you look down, his eyes are half-lidded, his lips glossy and bruised, and his naked chest is heaving in an attempt to catch his breath. He reaches down to grab the straps of his backpack and his rifle, and you barely have enough time to gather your things before he’s pulling you down the hallway by your wrist.   
  
The security in this hotel is more for the peace of mind of the guest than any real attempt at deterring a break-in. When you slam Delta up against the door of 1507, the hinges give way, and the two of you end up stumbling into the room, unwilling to give up contact even to get inside. The place has fallen into disrepair since the outbreak, but you can’t bring yourself to care. You have more important things to do right now.   
  
You take him then and there, cradling his head to keep his skull from knocking against the headboard while you try to forget that this could be your last night on earth. For as long as you can make it last, you can convince yourself that everything’s going to be okay, that the world is as it once was, that you can let yourself trust and hope and love again. Delta clutches onto you like a lifeline, and by the time it’s over, he’s left bruises on your upper arms where he tried to hold on to his sanity.   
  
Even afterwards, you still feel shaky, breathless, on edge, panicked. You’re not the only one: Delta’s panting hard, flinching at every unexpected noise, fingers twitching for his gun. There’s a deathly silence in the room as both of you pull your clothes back on, and then you and Delta are trying to find a way to barricade the door. “We can’t get out of here,” you realize as you block the doorway with a desk. You’ve backed yourselves into a corner. “We can’t leave unless they’re all dead.”   
  
“With each flight of stairs, it is exponentially more unlikely that they will reach us,” Delta points out. “We have effectively thinned the horde by ensuring that very few will reach us. Others will likely stop on whatever floor they are able to reach.”   
  
“How many do you think will get up here?”   
  
Delta shrugs. You don’t like it when he makes that motion – this is not something to be nonchalant about. “I estimate that out of a horde of roughly one thousand, we have managed to dispatch about half. Given that they know our location and have learned how to climb stairs, as many as ten could make their way to our current shelter.”   
  
“That’s still ten too many.” You look at him from across the room; at least he’s doing you the favor of reloading your guns as well as his. “What’s their ETA?”   
  
“We may yet be able to accumulate four hours of sleep.”   
  
You sigh heavily. You’re wiped, but four is better than none. “Nothing else we can do right now.”   
  
You do the most you can with what you have, but you’re still not comfortable with your defenses, even when Delta sets up his more conventional traps. Neither of you wants to sleep with your back to the door, so you end up swinging the bed away from the wall. Delta clings to you, fisting your shirt in his hands, and you listen to his soft snores for what feels like days before exhaustion claims you.


	13. Chapter 13

You wake to the sound of gunfire.   
  
Your arms are empty. Delta’s already at the door, holding your shotgun at the ready; he’s climbed onto the desk to look out the peephole into the hallway. “Have they figured out how to use guns?” you shriek at him, throwing yourself off the bed and trying to get a view.   
  
“No,” Delta says slowly, softly. “I believe there are other humans in this building.”   
  
Your heart rises for a split-second, before you remember not to trust to hope. This may be the cavalry, but you have no idea who this is, whether they’ll rob you blind or let you go, whether they’re government or civilian. “Think we can leave without getting picked up?”   
  
“That was my next suggestion.” Delta blasts a hole in the door, puts his foot through it a few times, and widens it enough so that the two of you can wriggle through.   
  
You follow him out into the hallway after kicking the whole thing down – you’re nowhere near as skinny as he is. “Are you  _trying_  to let them know we’re here?”   
  
“If these humans understand that they have company, they may be more conservative when they engage.” The tug at the corner of Delta’s mouth would be a smirk on anyone else’s face.   
  
“God, I love you,” you breathe, smiling in return. “You are a genius, you know that?”   
  
“I am aware.” Smartass. You don’t get too bent out of shape about it, though. He still has your back, and you advance together down the hallway, eyes to your sights.   
  
The fourteenth floor has only one of the mindless, and Delta blasts its brain all over the wall. On the staircase between the twelfth and fourteenth floors, you can hear the sound of shots echoing up to meet you. They’re ascending as you’re descending. The twelfth floor has two zombies, the eleventh floor has four, and you’re amused at how the numbers are escalating.   
  
You don’t have time to double-check the pattern on the tenth floor, though, because that’s when you run into the other people.   
  
You came up through different stairwells, so you’re staring at each other like an Old West standoff, each side unwilling to put down their gun first. Once you stop acting so jumpy, though, you’re the one to put down your gun first and rush forward. “Washington, you old fuckface, what the hell are you doing here?”   
  
The kid he’s traveling with doesn’t put down his gun, not even when Wash himself drops his rifle and reaches out to embrace you. His eyes regard you suspiciously from beneath a mop of black hair, and you can tell he resents you touching his traveling companion. You clap Wash on the back a few times before he pulls back. “This is York,” he says by way of introduction to the kid.   
  
“Hey.” You stick out your hand to shake. “Epsilon, right?”   
  
Epsilon looks to your hand, then looks back into your eyes. “How do you know my name?”   
  
“I am responsible for that.” Delta’s come to your side. He doesn’t have his gun up, but he’s still twitchy, ready to fire. “Do you remember me?”   
  
“Duh.” Epsilon rolls his eyes. You start to wonder why he wouldn’t, but then he reaches out to hug Delta around the waist so hard it lifts the blond’s feet off the floor. “I missed you, Uncle Dee, I missed you, I missed you,” he keeps saying, the words muffled in his shirt.   
  
Uncle? Delta ruffles Epsilon’s hair playfully. You’re baffled by it, but Wash seems to take it as a matter of course. “Epsilon knew you were coming out this way. Don’t ask me how, ‘cause I don’t know. Easy enough to find you – you had every zombie in five neighboring counties on your trail.”   
  
You grin as broadly as you can, but the smile still won’t spread to the scarred side of your face. “Dee and I like to make an entrance.”   
  
“You’re telling me.” The four of you rush down the stairs and back out to the lobby. It’s a picture of carnage down here, the carpet blackened with pre-rotted organs, corpses littered like empty beer cans at a frat party. Wash didn’t ram his precious Pontiac inside: it’s waiting just outside, the barrels of his turret still smoldering a little. When he gives a little nod to Epsilon, the kid takes his gun and goes to start the car. “We’re in DC. If you follow us there, we can give you shelter.”   
  
“You got it.” You give him a lazy wave.   
  
He doesn’t turn around once he leaves your side. “Let’s get going,” he yells to Epsilon, and the kid twists the key in the ignition.   
  
After they peel out, Delta whispers into your ear. “Can we trust them?”   
  
“Yes.” Your answer is instantaneous and definite. “Yes, we can. I – I can trust.” You throw an arm around his shoulders and plant a kiss on his cheek.


	14. Chapter 14

By the time you get to the District of Columbia, the sun’s coming up and you’re exhausted. You’re too excited to sleep, though. It’s been a long time since you ran into Wash, and you’re looking forward to catching up with him.   
  
Their base is set up on top of a liquor store. He always did have an appreciation for the finer things in life. When you get inside, Wash has a round of drinks for everyone except the underage. It’s five o’clock somewhere, you reason, and when you sample what’s been offered to you, it’s some of the choicest scotch to ever grace your palate. Delta eyes his glass warily, but once he sees you drink, he follows your lead. The look on his face as he spits it back out is priceless.   
  
You spend a good fifteen minutes going through a roll call, asking after old friends and enemies. When you tell Wash about your run-in with Maine and Sigma, he laughs out loud – apparently he’s traveled with Maine before, and he finds the idea of him being taken hostage hilarious. His chuckle still hasn’t died out when he finally asks the question you’ve been dreading. “What about Carrie, seen her lately?”   
  
You give him a look before bringing your drink to your lips and knocking back the whole thing. When you answer, you can’t look him in the face, staring at the bottom of your glass like it’s going to help you say it. “No.”   
  
It’s only when Delta brings up the possibility of gleaning new information when the tension in the room finally dissipates. “This is all we found.” Wash slides a notebook across the table to Delta. The writing inside is nothing but a scribble in a thick blue pen, but Delta seems to be able to read it; he starts leafing through the pages, his eyes darting back and forth, reading too fast for you to follow along. “We’ve been here for three weeks. We searched block by block, looking for anything. Place is picked clean – probably the safest metro area in the country.”   
  
You hit your glass back down on the table. “There’s no zombies here?”   
  
“Not any more.” Wash fills your glass again, and you clink the rims together before taking another drink. “They can learn things, you know that?”   
  
“We were able to deduce that some seem to have a rudimentary level of intelligence on the level of advanced primates,” Delta chimes in, still not looking up from the notebook.   
  
“Whatever the fuck  _that_  means,” Epsilon grumbles. He looks mad that Wash isn’t letting him have any alcohol. “Point is, they learned not to fuck with us.”   
  
“And so you sent them to Bedford?” You raise an eyebrow at him, swish your drink idly. “Nice going.”   
  
“Not on purpose.” Wash knocks his second one back just as easily as the first. “We don’t know what makes them cluster or migrate. There’s nothing in this damn city as far as information goes.” He lets out a dry chuckle as he looks at his empty glass. “Guess that’s what you get when you ask for intel from the government.”   
  
“Are there any other signs of life here?” Delta asks suddenly.   
  
You know it’s not a non-sequitur, but it still takes Wash aback. “It’s a ghost town. Why?”   
  
“Either they’ve bunkered down, or that was just a rumor.” You plunk your elbow down on the table, rest the good side of your face on your palm; with your other hand, you swirl your drink. “In either case, they’re probably not coming out.”   
  
“The fuck are you talking about?” Epsilon certainly has a way of getting to the point. Has a mouth on him, too.   
  
“Our assumption was that the Cold War bunkers established to deflect nuclear fallout were currently in use as shelter for the government,” Delta explains. “If you have seen no one else, this means that they have no topside security for these facilities, which means that they are not in use. The seat of government appears to have been moved without civilian knowledge.” He glances to you, and you know what he’s thinking about: those bunkers under the New York City subway system.   
  
“All the better.” Wash drinks to that, too. From what you remember, he was a militia member even before this outbreak happened, which was one of the only reasons he survived. His distrust of the officials bordered on paranoia, though, and sometimes he was hard to deal with. “So. Are you two gonna stay here? Plenty of juice, enough food to last a year. You can get a solid eight hours at night.”   
  
“Nah, sorry.” You shake your head, and when that simple action makes you dizzy, you shove away your glass. “Dee and I are headed to New York City.”   
  
Epsilon gasps, and when you look over at him, his eyes are lit with hope. “You found a lead?”   
  
“Epsilon, need I remind you that this in itself does not mean there will be information at the source?” Delta says it kindly, though, and he puts away his notebook to join in the conversation.   
  
“Yeah, but. But.” Epsilon splutters for a moment, then gets just as excited again. “Can we come with you?”   
  
“He’s not usually this hyper,” Wash explains, reaching over to pet the kid on the head a few times so he’ll calm down.   
  
Delta turns to you for an answer. You know what he’d like to say: that the two of you don’t have room, supplies, something to keep them from interfering. Epsilon seems as desperate for answers as you do, though, and you don’t want to be the one to quench the flames in his eyes. Besides, it would give you a few days to think on what just happened between you and Delta, a few days where you wouldn’t feel so terribly compelled to be close to him. “Sure,” you blurt out before thinking about it any more than you have to. “Sure, you can come with.” Then, turning back to Wash, “Are you going to be okay without him?”   
  
“Are you kidding me?” He slings an arm around Epsilon’s shoulders, and the kid throws both arms around Wash’s neck. You know this isn’t actually Wash’s kid, but he’s certainly dedicated to acting like his father, and it’s heartwarming to see that he’s learned to care about someone so much. “If he goes, I go.”   
  
“Then you’d better stock up fast.” Behind your hand, you stage-whisper to Wash. “Dee doesn’t like to stay in one place for too long. We’ll probably move out as soon as we can get some rest.”   
  
“You too? What, did I end up with the only officer without a flight instinct?” He’s not mad, though, and eventually he shrugs Epsilon off his shoulder. “Bed.”   
  
“No,” Epsilon pouts like a toddler. “You guys are gonna stay up, I’m gonna stay up.”   
  
“Actually, Dee and I –” You look over to where Delta’s leaned over the table, resting his head on his arms. His little snuffling breaths let you know he’s conked out. “We kinda need our sleep. Got a place for us?”   
  
Wash fixes you with a piercing gray stare. “Just the one. That gonna be okay for you two?”   
  
“It’s fine,” you grunt out as you take Delta in your arms. The kid doesn’t exactly wake up, but he curls up in your chest, ear next to your heart and hand wrapping around the bruises he already left on your limbs. “Best be ready to go by the time he wakes up.”


	15. Chapter 15

By nightfall, the four of you are back on the road, a caravan of two. Wash didn’t want to leave his Pontiac behind, and you have a feeling it’s going to come in handy one of these days. Delta’s leading the way, hunched over the wheel with a determined frown on his face. With every mile you cross, the kid seems to get wound that much tighter. Moreover, he doesn’t seem to want to stop. Your original plan was to go from Bedford to Harrisburg to Allentown before actually hitting the Big Apple, but Delta’s overriding your usual stop-every-so-many-miles policy. First it’s Baltimore in your rearview, then Bel Air South, then Newark, then Wilmington.   
  
When you pass the Pennsylvania border, you get sick of silence, and you figure that talking to Delta will get him to loosen up a little. The plan backfires on you, though, when he asks you the most kick-in-the-balls question he can, right out of the gate. “Who is Carrie?”   
  
You sigh, stare out of the window. “Do we have to talk about this now?”   
  
“I feel it would help me to understand your mental state as we approach the possibility of learning some potentially disturbing material.”   
  
Damn this kid’s logic. Now it doesn’t make sense to deny him. You can’t just roll over like that, though. “If I tell you about Carrie, will you tell me about Sigma?”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
Damn him again. You were hoping for a no so you could back out of this gracefully. “Are you sure you want to hear about this?”   
  
“There are no radio stations active in this area of the country and we have no music to play. I would appreciate hearing your voice in order to keep my concentration on the road.” Then, quieter, “I would also prefer to know about your past if I will be traveling with you for the foreseeable future.”   
  
Oh, right. He thinks he’s going to want to stay with you past New York City. You’ll probably get there by the end of the day, so you don’t have to be afraid of scaring him off any more. “Carrie – well, Carolina, I guess – was this gal I ended up with during those first few months. I met her while she was in the middle of the road slaying zombies – kind of how I met you, now that I come to think of it – and we hit it off right away. And I mean  _right away_ . We stayed up all night that first night, and we weren’t exactly talking, if you catch my drift.”   
  
“You were engaging in sexual intercourse rather than verbal intercourse,” Delta translates.   
  
You glare at him slantways. “You have a really weird way of putting things, you know that?”    
  
“I apologize; I did not mean to interrupt.”   
  
“Okay. So. Anyway. Yes. She said she was going to the East Coast, North or South Carolina, so that’s just what I ended up calling her. I wasn’t going anywhere in particular, so she and I decided to make the trek together. I thought I’d be the competent one.” You snort, not quite daring to laugh. It’s not a funny story. “She ended up teaching me everything I know. She was a crack shot on top of being a master of about seven different martial arts, or at least that’s what it felt like at the time. But she was patient with me, and she introduced me to the fine art of zombie killing.”   
  
You trail off, looking out the window as the landscape scrolls by. There’s clouds on the horizon, and you hope it waits to storm until you’ve reached the Big Apple. Delta gives you a minute, but then he can’t stand it any more. “This is not the end of your story.”   
  
“No. No, it isn’t.” You take a deep, shuddering breath. You just got the nightmares to go away a few days before you met this kid, and now he’s making you relive everything. “We’d just crossed the North Carolina border. We knew something was wrong, but we couldn’t put our finger on what. Then Carrie – she was driving the minivan – she pulled over on the side of the road ‘cause she saw hitchhikers and she wanted to give them a chance. It was these two boys, twins, and they couldn’t have been older than eleven or twelve.” You recline your seat and reach behind you for a Tab; you need something to do with your hands.   
  
When you put your feet up on the dash, Delta doesn’t even scold you – not for that, at least. “Please, continue.”   
  
“I’m getting there, I’m getting there.” Your soda’s going flat and it’s warm, but it’s still comforting, in a way. “These kids, we never even got their names. The one, though, was sick. Really sick. Fever, cold sweat, shivering, throwing up, whole nine yards. His brother was trying to take care of him, but none of us really knew what to do. Carrie and I had never carried medicine with us. We knew this kid was going to die and there was nothing we could do about it. It really got to her after a while, too.   
  
“Well, we weren’t exactly parent material, and that wasn’t what I signed up for when I’d decided to travel with her. So we left to set up camp for the night – we were staying in one of those pop-up jobs in the middle of a field, we were pretty stupid back then. By the time I set up the campfire, I could hear screams from the van, and I thought he was dead.” You take a long slurp from your can, and it crumples slightly in your shaking fist. “It was worse.”   
  
Delta says what you’re thinking. “He had been poisoned.”   
  
“And then he bit the other one. Before long, both of them were trying to claw their way out of the minivan. There were these deep scratches in the glass. Carrie heard the commotion, so she left first. She thought they were just playing around with her, just being kids, but just in case, she wanted to grab one of her guns.” You shake your head slowly, swallowing down the choking feeling gathering in your throat. “If I had reminded her to get her damn gun, if I had told her to pass those two by, it wouldn’t have happened.”   
  
“She was attacked.”   
  
You’re actually glad it’s coming out of Delta’s mouth, because your tongue feels heavy and your soft palate is dry. “They ripped her apart. I could hear every single scream as they ate her alive. Then they came for me. They thought I was still by the fire, but I managed to swing around. She was – she was just – she wasn’t moving. They’d ripped out her throat, and her hair was torn away from her head in big bloody chunks, and her eyes – her legs were broken, and they’d gnawed on her arms, and oh, God, this makes me feel sick talking about this.”   
  
Delta helpfully rolls down the passenger side window, and you gulp down the outside air hungrily. You don’t even notice Delta’s hand on your knee until he squeezes your thigh very, very gently. “There was nothing you could have done for her,” he reassures you.   
  
“That didn’t make it any easier.” You turn your head to the wind; if Delta saw you wipe your eyes on the back of your hand, you’d be done. “I had to kill the zombies. I had to use all the skills she taught me to murder those two kids. And then, once they were down – she’d taught me to go for the brain. And if it was passed by blood, or when they bit you, then she was done for.” Your voice gets harsher, and your eyes are burning. “I had told that woman I loved her, and I had to blow her fucking head off, and it was just me, just me in that minivan, and I didn’t sleep for days, and you have no idea, Delta, you have  _no fucking idea_  what I’ve been through, how much it hurts to talk about it…” You only trail off once your throat closes up too much for you to continue babbling.   
  
“I do.” His thumb runs slow circles on the seam of your jeans. “I understand.”   
  
“How could you?” Your tone comes out accusatory. “You’ve never had to kill someone you love like that.”   
  
“I watched him walk away.”   
  
When you look to him, his eyes are still on the road, but his stare goes on for a thousand yards. “How is that anything like –”   
  
“Sigma and I were deployed together.” The set of his mouth becomes that much firmer. “He and I had been inseparable for eight months. I came to rely on him as if he were a part of me. We traveled as our directives dictated. He taught me several methods I had not considered – he was always the creative one of our pair. I, on the other hand, taught him risk analysis, which he refused to use. Still, we worked well as a team. Then we met our first survivor.”   
  
“Maine?” you guess.   
  
Delta nods sharply, the crease between his eyebrows growing more defined. “It became clear to me that Sigma preferred his company to mine. He is just as capable as I am in every way, except, perhaps, with the addition of his physical brawn. By the time we had traveled to Albuquerque, Sigma had decided he was in love.”   
  
“Ouch.” You put your hand over the one Delta still has on your leg; he’s squeezing you a bit harder than strictly necessary.   
  
“With both of us.” He has a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. “Maine asked him to make a choice.” The show of emotion you see out of him is the most extravagant thus far: he rests his forehead on the steering wheel, his eyes screwed shut, teeth showing in a grimace. “Sigma chose to leave with him. He seemed anguished, but reading emotions is not a skill I have in abundance.”   
  
The car’s been drifting to the right while Delta’s been irresponsible. “Eyes on the road!” you warn him, digging your nails into the back of his hand.   
  
Delta veers back onto the highway with the sickening sound of screeching tires. “For months I have wondered what made him leave. Then, last night, you said those same words to me again.”   
  
You swear that somewhere, there’s a record scratching. “Wait, what?”   
  
“You said to me in the hotel, and I quote,  _God, I love you_ .” Kid gets your intonation right and everything.   
  
“Listen.” You take your foot down from the dash and look his way. “I was being facetious. Eyes on the road!” you remind him again, actually reaching out to turn the steering wheel so he doesn’t drive you off the road. “So I know a few big words. Try not to faint.”   
  
Delta gets the car back under control. “Are you romantically interested in me, or did you say this with some sort of metaphoric intent?”   
  
“Did you not listen to a thing I just said?” When you snort, the carbonation from your soda goes up into your nasal cavity, and you end up sneezing. “Even if I am – and, okay, we do get along pretty well, and that thing last night – yesterday – whenever – ”   
  
“You say you have no feelings.” Delta chews on his lip. He has to know what it does to you when you see him do that. “On the surface, it may appear as if I, too, am unaffected emotionally by what happens around me. In reality, however, this environment has taken a toll on both of us.” He grabs your hand so he can put it on the steering wheel while he looks straight at you; his green eyes are positively bewitching. “I once told you that I am never vulnerable. I now realize that I have allowed myself to become defenseless to you, and I am beginning to doubt whether this is such an undesirable outcome.”   
  
Your Escalade sideswipes another empty vehicle on the highway, jarring you both back into the moment. Delta hurriedly corrects course, slamming you back to your side of the car. For a few minutes, you’re both a little edgy from the crash. Even though there’s still a breeze in the car, the atmosphere feels stifling. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” you mumble.   
  
“I, too, did not intend this outcome.” Delta maneuvers around an abandoned car a little more deftly this time. “What do you plan to do about this?”   
  
For the first time in your life, you find yourself at a loss for words. “I don’t know.” You busy your mouth with your soda, then laugh; the sound comes out hollow, but at least it’s genuine. “I told you that you needed to be patient with me.”   
  
“And though I am loath to repeat myself, I will remind you that I have the time to wait.”   
  
This can’s done with, no matter how many times you tip it back to get the last drop out. When you litter out your open window, the garbage clunks off of the Pontiac behind you, and you can almost hear Epsilon cussing. “You’re really going to stay with me, then.” You sound so goddamn eager and you can’t bring yourself to care.   
  
“Please do not make me repeat myself.”   
  
“What if I ask very, very nicely?”   
  
Delta’s grip tightens on the steering wheel, and his hands twist like he’s pretending to wring your neck. “Do you express affection by intentionally aggravating others?”   
  
“Best get used to it, kid.” A sign for Chester passes overhead. “Hey, are we there yet?”   
  
You’re answered with a long-suffering sigh. “I will alert you when we reach the New Jersey border.”


	16. Chapter 16

He lets you sleep through Pennsylvania, doesn’t even poke you awake when you cross state lines again. It’s only when you’re going onto an exit ramp that Delta reaches over and flips a switch on your seat controls to throw you into the upright position. “Waugh! What’d I miss, what’d I miss?”   
  
“We are stopping in Newark,” Delta informs you. “Washington agrees with me that it is wise to map out a strategy before we reach a more urban area. He is willing to teach us techniques for how to scan a city of this size block-by-block to find information.”   
  
“Huh.” Usually that guy’s a stingy bastard with his skills. He seems to have loosened up since you left him, though.   
  
Maybe he thinks the same of you.   
  
It’s not long before the four of you are in an abandoned townhouse, crowded around the kitchen table and arguing late into the night about what borough you ought to start in first. Epsilon’s pretty opinionated, for only being sixteen, but you have to remind yourself that the kid is older than he looks – he’s a containment officer, for God’s sake. It’s eerie for you to watch how Delta acts around the teen, too close to how Carolina treated those twins.   
  
After yet another disagreement between the three of you and Epsilon, one that ends in Delta dragging him off by his ear and sticking a bar of soap in his mouth, you and Wash step out for a cigarette break. It’s been ages since you’ve had one of these – come to think of it, the last time was when you were traveling with him. “Where did you find these?”   
  
“I live above a liquor store and you’re asking me where I found cigarettes.” When he says it like that, he makes you feel stupid for asking. He flicks his lighter, and you lean forward to light before he focuses on his own. This is one of the little things you’ve learned to enjoy, just having a smoke on the front stoop and looking up at the sky through the ashy haze. There’s no other lights around for miles, and you can actually pick out constellations, the stars shine through so brightly. “You doing right by him?” Wash asks you.   
  
“Why does everyone assume I’m not taking care of him?” God, you missed the nicotine. “He’s not a bad kid, really.”   
  
“Gonna keep him?”   
  
“He’s a containment officer. He knows his stuff.” You blow smoke in his face, teasing him. “Why, is there something I don’t know?”   
  
Wash waves his hand in front of his face. Apparently, only his own smoke is acceptable. He blows a smoke ring just to spite you. “I’m not sure you’re going to like what you find out once you get to the City.”   
  
“Listen, Maine already warned me. These kids are broken. I get it.” He’s traveled with Maine before, so you know he must respect the guy’s judgment. “Delta seems okay to me, though. A little jumpy, halfway neurotic, but who isn’t?” Your cigarette is ashing faster than you’d like. Then, as you flick the ash right across Wash’s shoes, “Have you already been to the Big Apple? Did you find anything?”   
  
“There isn’t anything there.” Wash lights another cigarette from the stub his first one has become. “You don’t have to go through every room of every building to know when everything’s been censored.”   
  
“Maine already told me.” You’re savoring this one, taking it slowly – you don’t know if Wash is generous enough to give you a second. “I can’t just give it up. It’s the only lead I have. And the way his eyes light up…” You sigh, your breath outlined in the smoke. “I can’t take that away from him. You have to know what it’s like.”   
  
“I can’t believe you’re indulging him like this,” Wash grumbles. He flicks his lighter just to have something to do with his hands.   
  
You stub your cigarette out on the concrete step. Wash offers you another; you decline it, but he insists, shoving the pack your way again. “You’re such a hypocrite,” you grumble as you puff your cigarette to life. Never smart to insult a man who has a lighter in your face – your eyebrow gets accidentally on purpose singed with the little flame. “You couldn’t say no to him.”   
  
“It’s better than getting pestered about it for weeks.” He rests his elbows on his knees, dangling his cigarette between his legs. “He needs something to hope for or he’ll eat his gun.”   
  
“We all need something to hope for, Wash.” It’s the only thing keeping you going these days. That, and knowing that there’s finally someone who’s promised to stay with you.   
  
You can’t tell if he’s mad at you or just mulling it over, but the two of you are quiet as you finish your second cigarette. When you make your way back inside, Epsilon is significantly more subdued, wearing a white mustache of soap suds on his upper lip. “’M sorry,” he mumbles as Delta glares at him. “Shouldn’t have cussed so damn much.” He covers his mouth with his hands again, and something you suppose is an apology gets muffled by his fingers.   
  
Four hours later, you have a doable plan for going through the city. If Delta’s going to be setting the pace, it’ll take you about a week, judging by the seven different colors highlighting portions of the map. Wash starts marking particular landmarks with a star in red Sharpie, and then Epsilon insists that he gets to deface the maps, too, tracing the major avenues and boulevards with a black Sharpie. By the time the other three get done, there’s not much you can do but lean back in your chair and approve their good work.   
  
Wash takes a washcloth to Epsilon’s face, then sends him to bed with a playful spank. You’ve never seen him quite so happy with his role in a relationship before; you try not to let him catch you staring, but there’s at least one point where his gaze finds yours and he’s daring you to judge him.   
  
You and Delta set up the zombie traps together. Delta tries to teach you precisely where each sensor goes, how much of a range they have, what triggers them, which wires go where, but it’s hard for you to pay attention when he manages to bite his lower lip at least once with each installation. Eventually, you’re forced to kiss him just to get him to stop it, and somehow, you don’t remember how to stop.


	17. Chapter 17

The smell of coffee makes you want to throw up, but Wash seems to love the stuff. Never mind that you’ve told him several times that it reminds you of someone you’d rather forget, never mind that you’ve never been able to stand the stuff – it’s always about Wash. You smile to yourself. He never changes, and that’s both a good and a bad thing.   
  
When he offers you a mug, you’re tempted to throw it in his face; instead, you take it only to hand it off to Epsilon. The kid’s eyes sparkle like Christmas came early, and he chugs the whole thing down while Wash looks on in horror. You’re just glad that Delta doesn’t seem to have a proclivity to substance use – it’s nice to be the only one who has a vice to maintain, easier to acquire everything you want.   
  
Somehow, even with the caffeine, Wash is still cranky when you prepare your vehicles. He tosses Delta something before you get on the road – walkie-talkies, useful in a place where there’s no guarantee of any other means of communication. Epsilon, of course, abuses this power to hassle you and Delta on your way into the city, and even though it should be comical to you, you can’t help the growing feeling of apprehension curling in your gut. As the skyline looms higher over you, you’re realizing just how big the city actually is, how many buildings you potentially have to search – and how many zombies there might be.   
  
Wash is more cautious a driver than Delta, so you’re actually going at a reasonable pace while you make your way there. Everything feels haunted – more haunted than usual, that is. New York City used to be one of the most bustling metropolitan hubs in the world, and now it’s a ghost town, just like any other collection of buildings in the rest of the country. There aren’t even corpses here, which makes the streets feel naked.   
  
Either the walkie-talkies are messing up, or there’s actually a radio signal in this town, because the sound of static is filling your ears. Every so often, you can hear a voice that you recognize as Epsilon’s, but it’s not speaking a language you know. Delta’s mouth is set in a hard line, his eyebrows drawn together, his expression determined. You’re not the only one discomposed, and somehow it makes you feel even worse. “Come in, Foxtrot-six,” you grit out into the transceiver in your hand.   
  
“Read, Foxtrot-twelve.” Wash sounds as tense as you feel. “You hear that too? Over.”   
  
“Thought it was just interference.” When you let go of the call button, the static takes over again. “Not coming from my line, over.”   
  
“Not from mine.” This time, when Wash pages you back, you can definitely hear Epsilon in the background; his mumbling is only getting louder the closer you get to the center of the city. “Getting louder as we go further in. Think it’s a signal? Over.”   
  
“Can’t think of anything else it might be. Problem is, is it an SOS or an elaborate trap? Over.” You don’t want to tell Wash about your embarrassing experience having been taken captive if you can help it, but you also want to warn him about the potential danger of tracing the line.   
  
Wash takes more than a minute to think it over, slowing down even further as the buildings dwarf you overhead. “We trace it. Delta, can you triangulate? Over.”   
  
Delta gives you a curt nod. “He’ll do it. Have you seen a single body on your way in here? Over.”   
  
“Not one.” Wash lowers his voice, ostensibly so Epsilon won’t hear him. “I have a bad feeling about this, over.”   
  
You snort out a perverse laugh. “Thanks, Luke Skywalker, I’ll keep that in mind. Foxtrot-twelve out.” When you bring the unit away from your face, you notice Delta staring at you. “What?”   
  
“I am merely examining your linguistic conventions when attempting to dissipate stress. It appears that you use deliberate falsification and exaggeration with the intent of facilitating humor – unless Luke Skywalker is Washington’s given name.”   
  
“Kid, you gotta make me a promise. You stick with me, you stop with the technical jargon.” Delta sighs, but as far as you’re concerned, he agrees. “And no, that’s not his name. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen Star Wars.”   
  
“I assume this is a motion picture.”   
  
“You got a screw loose.” Or several. You can’t be buggered to count them right now – you’re too distracted by the sudden screech that comes through your radio unit. “Foxtrot-six, what the  _fuck_  was that?” The other end of the line stays silent, and sheepishly, you add “Over.”   
  
“That wasn’t us, over.” At least you’re not the only jumpy one.   
  
Wash pulls over to the side of the road, and Delta follows him. You’re not going anywhere without a basic survival kit, so you shrug a backpack onto your shoulders and sling a rifle across your body. Even after you put yourself together, though, Wash and Epsilon still haven’t left their Pontiac. The windows are tinted, so you can’t see what’s going on inside. You rap a knuckle on the driver’s side window. “Everything okay in there?”   
  
Wash opens the door so fast you’re surprised he doesn’t break your legs with it. “No, everything is not okay,” he spits out, glaring you in the face. “That kid,” and he gestures back to the passenger’s seat, “is  _not okay._ ”   
  
“The memory isn’t mine!” you can hear from behind Wash. Epsilon sounds like he’s in physical pain, and you suppose the thumping noises are his attempts to punch the upholstery. “It isn’t mine, I shouldn’t have to carry it, it isn’t mine,  _make it stop, Wash, make them stop!_ ”   
  
Delta’s the one who opens Epsilon’s door and drags him out of the car, keeping him sitting down on the curb with a strong embrace as Epsilon tries to claw his way out and keeps babbling his nonsense. “You see what I have to deal with?” Wash hisses. “The closer we get to that signal, the louder he gets, and he is seriously starting to damage my calm!”   
  
“Did you ever consider just  _talking_  to him about it?” you bite back. Epsilon’s loud outbursts are trailing off, taken over by Delta’s constant calming murmur.   
  
Wash fumes at you for a few more seconds – you swear you can see steam rising from his forehead – before his posture breaks. He doesn’t admit you’re right, but he doesn’t have to. You can tell he wants to rip Epsilon out of Delta’s arms, but instead, he gets down on one knee and reaches out with a shaky hand to pet down Epsilon’s spine. “Shh,” you hear him whisper. “Shhh. Tell me what’s wrong.”   
  
“The signal… can’t stop the signal…” You step closer as Epsilon’s voice fades, resting your hand on the top of Delta’s head. “They’re all screaming in the silence, I can hear – all of them, the Meta in my head, filled with nothing, they’re all  _nothing_ …”   
  
“Meta? Who’s the Meta?” Wash gently tugs Epsilon’s face out of Delta’s shirt, wipes off his face with his sleeve. “Am I… talking to the Meta right now?”   
  
“My name is Meta, for we are many.” Epsilon dissolves into hysterical giggles cut through with hiccups. “They never lie down, they’re always moving, they’re always hungry, they lie down and they never get back up, bullet in the brainpan, squish!  _Put a bullet in me!_ ”   
  
“Shh.” Wash holds Epsilon to his chest as he lets the kid sob it out, whatever freaky panic attack he’s having. Delta stands and turns his back on the scene, and you’re left feeling like a voyeur. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. We’re going to be okay. We’ll get through this.”   
  
“Things are about to get much, much worse.” Epsilon’s sniffles are muted against Wash’s shirt. “Get up – why won’t we get up, why won’t they get up…”   
  
Delta, meanwhile, is walking away. “Where are you going?” you yell after him, hustling to his side.   
  
“There appears to be a trail laid out for us.” He holds you back, throwing out an arm to halt your progress, and points to the sidewalk.   
  
There’s a symbol etched there, so deeply that it can’t be an accident. The markings are cramped together, but it looks like a clusterfuck of Greek letters, and at the top is what looks like an arrow, pointing forward. “What  _is_  that?”   
  
“The Meta.” You jump in your skin – Epsilon crept up behind you while you weren’t paying attention. “All of us. All our letters. Together.”   
  
“The most probable explanation is that this will point us to some information,” Delta muses.   
  
“Then what are we waiting for?” You shoulder your pack higher, bring your firearm out and to the ready. “Let’s follow the yellow brick road.” Delta glares at you. “Humor, Dee. Get used to it.”


	18. Chapter 18

There’s no fewer than twelve of those symbols on any given block. Wash and Epsilon branch out, staying in walkie-talkie range, and they report that the arrows are on every street they see. You’re convinced that at any second, a zombie’s going to shamble around a corner, so you’re jerky and paranoid, ready to fire when you hear something as soft as a plastic bag rustling in the wind. You hope Delta remembers where you parked, because you’re definitely lost by now.   
  
The further into the city you get, the more your radios are chirping and whistling, and the closer together the symbols get. It’s not until the arrows are nearly overlapping that you realize they’re pointing right to the building in front of you, a huge skyfucker of a high-rise. Delta fiddles with some equipment you don’t recognize, then simply says “This is the place.”   
  
Epsilon’s still a mess; Wash has ushered him this whole way, an arm around his shoulders. “You know why we’re here, kid?”   
  
You don’t realize how blue his eyes are until you’re pinned under his glare. “Do you?”   
  
Wash charges ahead, and Epsilon stumbles in his hold. “Let’s get going.”   
  
There’s nothing exceptional on the inside except for more of these cryptic scrawlings. As night falls outside, they start glowing, almost beckoning you upwards. “What is this place?” you breathe, taking stock of the glass-walled atrium.   
  
“Every floor, every room, this whole place…” For a second, you’re sure Epsilon is about to pass out.   
  
Then he brings his elbow up to hit Wash in the face and sprints for the staircase.   
  
Delta reacts faster than any human could. “Get him!” you yell, reaching out for Wash’s arm so you can drag him along with you on your chase. You’re not going to be fast enough to match this kid, though, and eventually you’re winded and dizzy from the swift ascent. As you climb, though, you realize what must have set Epsilon off. The signal is audible in here, fuzzy words patchy through the static, and with every floor you pass, it resolves with greater and greater clarity.   
  
The door leading to the fortieth floor is ajar. Wash has stopped clutching at his nose, but it hasn’t stopped bleeding down his face. From inside, you can smell something sickly-sweet and cloying, like molding roses. When you push your way past the threshold, though, there’s nothing out of the ordinary in here, just Delta at a computer and Epsilon leaning over his shoulder. There’s a clack-clack-clack as rapid as machine gun fire while Delta’s fingers abuse the keyboard, and then, suddenly, he’s inside the system with an alarmingly loud start-up noise.   
  
The speakers start blaring out the same message you’ve been hearing, except with perfect fidelity.   
  
“It isn’t what we thought.” When you creep over next to Epsilon to look over Delta’s shoulder at the computer, you can see a video log with a woman in a white lab coat talking. She looks terrified. “This was not an organic pathogen or a genetic disease. It’s the Alpha – the 24-Alpha ionized neurotransmitter we tested on the officers. Most of them didn’t live to the second and third exposure. They slowed down. And then they stopped. Everything. Training. Sleeping. Eating. Breathing. Only five percent of the subjects survived, and the survivors –”   
  
The room fills with an eerily familiar sound. You bring up your gun, but the zombie moans are coming from the computer speakers. “Some of the survivors seem to be okay, even if they don’t remember anything that happened in their personal lives before their recruitment, but for the most part… the neurotransmitter hit exactly what we didn’t want it to. Instead of us being able to control their aggression, it increased and increased until – they’ve killed most of us, done things, unspeakable things, and just when you think they’re dead they rise again and attack and attack and attack until –”   
  
In the background of the video log, you see the door cave in. You know exactly what’s coming, but you can’t look away. Epsilon slips off of Delta’s shoulder and leans down to retch into the trash can under the desk. “Turn it off,” Wash grits out, and Delta hurriedly closes the window.   
  
The room falls silent except for Epsilon’s heaving breaths. If no one else is going to say it, you can. “Zombies. They made you – and they made them.”   
  
“This terminal was sealed off with a government codec,” Delta notes quietly.   
  
Now  _you_  feel like you’re going to be sick. “Meddlesome,” Epsilon murmurs. “We’re meddlesome. We meddle with their homes and their heads and their hearts and we don’t have the right but we keep doing it because we think we’re making people better.”   
  
“What was the time stamp on that recording?” you ask Delta.   
  
“Six months ago.” It’s not like him to talk in fragments – so it’s affecting him, too.   
  
Wash looks too busy rubbing Epsilon’s upper back and making sure the kid doesn’t vomit on his shoes, but as usual, he has to put in his two cents. “We have to share this.”   
  
“We don’t  _have_  to do anything,” you counter. “This is sick stuff. There’s a reason we didn’t know about it.”   
  
“No, York. Washington is correct.” When he turns, there’s a fire in his green eyes that disturbs you. “The outbreak has been contained to the North American continent. Should this be broadcast worldwide, we could send out a warning and begin to rebuild.”   
  
“And just how is it that you intend to get the word out?” But once it’s out of your mouth, you know, and your stomach flips again at this fresh hell. “Gamma,” you breathe, and Delta brings his chin down in a nod. “He’s the only other one with a live signal.”   
  
“Where?” Wash cuts in.   
  
“Peoria,” you tell him. “It’s too far. It’s not worth it just for this –”   
  
“Delta,” he says over your protests, “get that onto some physical media. Any form you can – thumb drive, CD, MP3 file, video, anything. Epsilon,” and his tone softens a little as he orders around his kid, “I need you to pull yourself together, okay? We have to make another trip. We can’t stay here.”   
  
“It isn’t safe,” Epsilon agrees, his voice weak.   
  
You’re obviously outnumbered here, but you’re not about to give in so easily. “How come you get to be in charge?” you grumble to Wash.   
  
“Because the closest thing I have to a son,” he growls through clenched teeth, “was broken by these bastards, and they deserve to pay.”   
  
There’s an awkward lapse into silence before Delta starts shutting down the computer. “I have extracted all the data that was readily apparent as connected to this project,” he reports, not to Wash but to you. At least he’s still following your lead.   
  
“How long to Peoria?” Wash asks Delta.   
  
“Pre-outbreak travel would take roughly fifteen hours.” Delta slips a few tech things into your backpack. “An optimistic estimate in these conditions is two days.”   
  
“We gotta get there faster.” As it comes out of your mouth, the concept starts coming together in your mind. “If it was really the government, if they still had this encoded, then they’re still out there, biding their time. They know we have this information, and they know we’re going to share it. They’re going to be on our tail the second we leave this building.”   
  
“They won’t stop ‘til we’re dead.” At least your little harbinger of doom seems to endorse your idea.   
  
“Taking one vehicle will be more efficient than taking two,” Delta starts planning out loud. “There is more space in the sport utility vehicle than in the coupe.”   
  
“Oh  _hell_  no. Don’t you make me leave my Pontiac.” That thing’s been Wash’s pride and joy since the day he found that turret abandoned outside of Fort Worth.   
  
“Wash, don’t be like that.” Epsilon finally looks up from where he had his head in the trash can. “You gotta do whatcha gotta do and all that – didn’t  _you_  tell me that once?”   
  
“For having such a shitty memory, you’re awfully good at remembering what I don’t want you to.” Sure, Wash is mad, but the way he claps Epsilon’s shoulder lets you know that he’s still finding some humor in this. “When do we leave?”   
  
“Yesterday,” you and Delta say in unison. And even though this isn’t funny, you still find a way to grin.


	19. Chapter 19

Funnily enough, it’s Epsilon who remembers where you parked. The closest to a compromise you can get to with Wash involves him installing the turret on the top of the SUV, and even though it messes with the balance of the car, you have to put up with it in order for him to come quietly.   
  
There’s the usual argument over who gets to drive – even Epsilon pipes up, all three of you telling him “no” at the same time – before eventually Delta out-logics you all. Somehow, you and Wash end up in the backseat, but at least Epsilon’s bothering the driver instead of the two of you. Peppy little spitfuck.   
  
Pennsylvania is a no-man’s land, and the motion of the car lulls you to sleep. Somewhere around the Ohio border, you wake up with your head on Wash’s shoulder; his shirt is soaked with drool. To cover for it, you play Chinese fire drill with Epsilon, who snuggles into the space you left behind. You keep asking Delta when he needs to switch out, but the kid seems determined to go without sleep until this signal can get broadcast. He’s looking a little the worse for wear – dark circles under his eyes, fingers cramping into permanent fists – but he refuses to rest. You wonder if he’s really okay under that façade, but if you push him too much, you’re worried he’s going to crack.   
  
Speaking of cracking, Epsilon’s falling to pieces the further away from the coast you get. He and Wash probably just stayed in one place for too long, but the kid doesn’t seem like he was that stable to begin with. Now that he doesn’t know where he’s living, he seems lost. Wash has to keep reminding him, over and over, that he’s going to take care of him, and even then, Epsilon doesn’t seem to believe it, only pressing closer into his fatherly embrace.   
  
You can’t watch them. It makes your chest hurt.   
  
Instead, you start fantasizing about ways to kill Gamma. Or at least, that’s what you assume you’ll have to do in order to get access to the means by which he broadcast his trap message. There’s no way he’s just going to let you waltz in there, especially not since you killed the guy he was working with. Knowing him, he’ll just think you’re lying about the whole thing, put it down to a government conspiracy, refuse to help you, and then where will you be? That’s what you don’t like about the whole thing. In a zombie apocalypse, you have to plan all the way to Plan E. There’s no back-up plan for this mission, no way to get the message out if this should fail – which, if you can admit it to yourself, it probably will. What next? Will you jump shore, try to get to Europe or South America and hope they listen to you there?   
  
The more you think about it, the more hopeless it seems. The general mood in the car only gets darker the closer you get to Illinois, but none of you say your fears out loud. You don’t want to look like a pessimist in front of Delta, Delta and Wash don’t want to alarm Epsilon, and Epsilon’s messed up enough already without needing to acknowledge the gnawing feeling of despair eating at all of you right now.   
  
In the five hours it takes to go through Ohio, you and Wash wordlessly load clips, magazines, shotguns, bandoliers, anything that might be empty and needs to be at full capacity. Delta starts falling asleep at the wheel by the time you reach the Indiana border, and the only way you can keep him awake is by asking him to recite things he’s memorized. He starts with enumerating the weaponry in the car, then moves on to the periodic table, the presidents of the United States and their extended cabinet appointments, the state capitols, even multiplication tables.   
  
Even with the soothing tones of Delta’s recall trance, though, you’re still keyed up. Epsilon isn’t helping – the kid has an eerie sort of sixth sense, and when he finally quiets down on the outskirts of Indianapolis, you know, without knowing how you know, that something is about to go very, very wrong. Wash notices it too, if the significant glances he’s giving you are any indication. Delta keeps on with his version of a prayer, rambling sotto voce and running out of breath.   
  
You’re racing towards the sun, knowing full well you’ll never catch it.


	20. Chapter 20

It’s night by the time you reach Peoria, and none of you are particularly thrilled about it. The power grids are shot, for the most part, so the only thing separating you from a horde is your headlights.   
  
And then they’re in your sights, and you have to squeal to a stop to avoid engaging too soon.   
  
Dozens – hundreds – thousands – all the fucking zombies on the North American continent are between you and the Civic Center.  _All of them._   
  
Your impulse is to scream and run in the other direction, no matter how much you might get heckled for being craven. If being a coward is what it takes to live another day in a zombie apocalypse, you’ll gladly take it. Right now, though, failure is not an option, and neither is retreat. Your grip on your rifle is so white-knuckled you’re surprised you’re not denting the barrel. “What’s your rec?” you ask Delta.   
  
“Uh, throw fucking everything at them?” Epsilon answers for him.   
  
“I’m not sure we have enough ‘everything’ for all of them,” you mutter. “Wash, how much ammo you got for that turret?”   
  
“Plenty.” He rolls down his window and starts climbing out of the car, grabbing on one of the roof rails for leverage. “Don’t knock me off!” he yells out before he pushes off from the window ledge and lands with a thump on the roof.   
  
By now, they’re all shuffling towards you. The sheer numbers are overwhelming, and you’d be paralyzed with fear if it weren’t for Delta in the driver’s seat accidentally punching you in the shoulder when he reaches into the backseat to grab a pair of shotguns. You give him a look, and he just gives you a steely one right back. Epsilon nudges a bandolier of grenades over to you, and you sling it over your shoulder, the pears jostling up against your rifle strap. Then Delta’s climbing out of the car, feeding a cartridge into each shotgun barrel by jerking the guns down and then back up. Epsilon pushes past you to take the wheel. You stick to the SUV, but you need a better pan than the seventy or so degrees you can get out of the window, so you compromise and kick open your door, one foot on the armrest and one foot on the ridged step while you get the zombies in your sights.   
  
Then you pose as a team, because shit just got real.   
  
That lasts for about two seconds, because then Wash starts spraying lead into the solid wall of flesh in front of you. Epsilon takes the hint and slams the car into drive, making little jerky moves forward as he gets used to the controls of the vehicle. You’re actually thankful in this moment that the kid can’t drive, because it means he’s hitting pedestrians left and right, grinding them down with a sickening pop of skulls. Delta’s doing his part, dual-wielding the shotguns like they’re nothing more than pistols, taking the recoil and using it to his advantage as he wheels in a slow circle and blows as many brains out as he can. You got this – you totally got this, and you pull the pin from a pineapple with your teeth before lobbing it as far as it’ll go.   
  
It doesn’t go far. Your aim is shit. Still gets rid of three or four zombies that were getting alarmingly close, but it rocks Wash on the top of the car, and he curses a few times as his spray hits the air. “That?” he calls down to you. “Was the worst throw ever. Of all time.”   
  
“Says the guy who’s not even aiming,” you gouge him right back. A quick pull of your trigger, and three rounds embed in a zombie’s head, dropping it. Another pull, another short burst, another one bites the dust. And they just keep coming and coming and coming, no matter how many times you fire, no matter how aggressively Epsilon drives, no matter how widely Wash manages to direct his bullets, no matter how many guns Delta goes through – because he’s reaching into the back of the car for something else.   
  
Where the hell did he get a rocket launcher?   
  
You don’t have time to think about logistics, because you were about this close to having your left eye actually clawed out this time. Before the zombie can sink its teeth into you, you sink lead into it. The distinctive hiss-fire of the bazooka distracts you for a moment, and even Wash finds time to stop and whistle at the rocket before it blows, sending ten of the monsters flying in multiple parts.   
  
“Jesus, they just don’t stop coming,” you pant, switching out your magazine. “Dee, how many you think we’ve dropped so far?”   
  
“One hundred,” Delta calls back to you. He only has time to respond because he’s reloading the rocket launcher. “One hundred five,” he says again as Wash keeps doing what he’s doing, “one hundred seven” when Epsilon crushes two more of them, and he seems determined to keep counting.   
  
You can’t put up with him doing that while you’re slaying. You only have enough concentration to keep track of your own kill count, not a group’s. What’s more important to you is this: “How many we got left?”   
  
“Based on my rudimentary calculations, I would estimate  _all of them_ ,” Delta says drily before he’s knocked onto his ass by the force of the rocket launcher firing again.   
  
Epsilon’s exasperated sigh is hilarious. “We know that, fuckass, can you just give us a number or someshit?” He wails on the horn for extra comic effect as he plows through another section of the horde, going in reverse once he hits the radius of the crowd.   
  
“There may be as many as two thousand.” Delta doesn’t let his exposition interrupt his launch sequence, because as soon as the last word is out of his mouth he fires the rocket again.   
  
You can almost feel the singe when this one just grazes the good side of your face. “Could you  _not_  do that?” you complain, wiping your cheek on your shoulder. “I would kinda like to keep my face.”   
  
“Uh-huh, ‘cause you’re obviously in the running for a beauty contest,” Epsilon snarks from next to you.   
  
When you stare at him, the muzzle of your gun just naturally goes along. “If we get through this –”   
  
“When we get through this,” Delta automatically corrects you, throwing his bazooka to the ground. He comes up to your side to reach around and slip a few grenades out of your bandolier, and before you notice what he’s doing, he lays a gentle kiss on your cheek and buggers off again. You really want him at your side, but thankfully the body of the car is still guarding your left side and your right eye still has some depth perception. Besides, you don’t need him. Really, you don’t. You would just really appreciate it if he would drop everything to be at your side and show you he’s not going to die.   
  
You shake your head, fire a few times to cover for how momentarily distracted you were. “When we get through this,” you reiterate to Epsilon, picking up your train of thought again, “I am going to kick your ass so hard you’re going to thank me for it.”   
  
“Like to see you  _oh jesus fuck what was that_ .” Epsilon wheels the car around to the left so violently that you fall from your precarious position; thankfully, Delta is there to catch you before you kiss the pavement. “Holy fucking titty-shitting Christcocks, we got one of those fast-ass motherfuckers.”   
  
“Son of a bitch!” Wash wheels around immediately, trying to find it in the horde. It isn’t hard – whereas the other zombies’ skins are covered in decay and rot, the chupathingy looks like a lizard that hasn’t seen the light, and it’s hissing and shrieking where the other ghouls are just moaning and groaning. It’s smart, too, smarter than even the smartest zombie you’ve seen, and you try not to think on the mechanism that made it that intelligent.   
  
The chupathingy barrels out of the crowd and straight for the car, mouth wide open and revealing those sickening needle-thin razor teeth. Delta shoots the thing in the chest and it doesn’t even slow down. “Epsilon,  _get out!_ ” you yell on instinct. That chupathingy’s trying to take out the driver, and Epsilon’s going to get killed if he doesn’t move.   
  
He throws himself into the passenger seat just in time, and the chupathingy claws the air where he was, screaming at losing its prey. “I can’t get it, I can’t get it,” Wash warns his kid, fumbling for the pistol in the side holster.   
  
It’s drawing too much attention to himself – the sound, the visual – and you can’t let him be the bait alone. You and Delta don’t have time to say anything, can’t even find a moment to give each other significant glances, but you both descend on the thing at the same time, Delta reaching out with one of his knives while you try to shoot at any body part that isn’t just a white blur. The bullets rip off his fingers and one of his feet and he doesn’t even slow down.   
  
This is the first time you’ve seen Delta lose his cool, punching and kicking and stabbing and screaming the whole time he’s doing it. He doesn’t seem to care that the animal’s mouth is awfully close to him, so you have to be the one to bodily yank the chupathingy off of him. The chupathingy is momentarily stunned, looking at you with iris-less eyes, and it gives Wash just enough time to fire his pistol into the thing’s skull. It still looks like it’s going to charge at you for a few seconds until it just sags in place, like somebody pulled the plug.   
  
That one creature has to count for twenty, but it was a group kill, so you don’t know how to divvy it up. Doesn’t matter, because you’ll inflate your kill number anyway once this is over, and  _holy shit_  they just won’t stop coming. Wave after wave of them is still coming on you, and you’re not sure you have the endurance to make it. “Do we even have enough bullets for all of these?” you ask Delta, leaning against the car while he makes himself comfortable on your left side.   
  
“Ballistics may run out, but we will always have brute force on our side,” Delta points out. “The cranium makes little distinction between types of brain damage.”   
  
“Got a sledgehammer?” The remark isn’t quite as funny as it could be, given that you’re currently pinging down ghoul after ghoul at a range that’s quickly becoming point-blank.   
  
“We got a fucking SUV!” Epsilon reminds you. There’s a whine when he grinds the gears trying to switch into reverse, and then your support is taking away from you. You fall back against nothing, and once again, Delta is there to catch you.   
  
You don’t want to think about the day when he doesn’t, and that’s when you realize you really do love him.   
  
It gets buried underneath layer upon layer of panic and fear, and you’re too filled with adrenaline to recognize any other hormones. You slay and slay and slay and they’re still coming at you, slowly and stupidly but surely. “Hey, I think they’re thinning out,” you comment breathlessly to Delta.   
  
“Yes, I think we may have only two hundred left to eliminate.” And Delta’s not even being sarcastic. When did the sun start rising? Shouldn’t they be melting away or something?   
  
You’re definitely feeling the fatigue if you’re messing up your mythologies like that. They don’t know the difference between sun and shade, hardly know the difference between alive and dead. You’re trying to teach them, but they just won’t learn, because even after they’ve seen their compadres fall, they just keep advancing and advancing and advancing, mindless menaces with nothing left but the hunger.   
  
Wash eventually runs out of ammo for his beloved turret, and after kicking it a few times and cussing, he jumps down from the roof of the SUV to join you and Delta in the fracas. His style is definitely more scrappy, but he’s still efficient even if he is slow. Every one of his shots is a kill shot. It’s almost like he thinks ammo is scarce or something.   
  
Oh, wait.   
  
You make a quick count of your magazines – two – and your grenades – seven before Delta relieves you of two more. Delta tosses one of them to Wash, and all three of you pull the pins at the same time and fling them somewhere far away. At least your throw this time is slightly less pathetic, but Wash still has to make a comment. “Okay, that was the second worst throw of all time.”   
  
“Would you just shut up and get to work?” Zombie killing is your business, and tonight, business is good. Everything’s dying down by now, both figuratively and literally. You’ve created so many corpses that the zombies are tripping over them, and they always have trouble getting back up. It’s easy to put them out of your misery when they’re prone like that, and at this point, it’s nothing but clean-up.   
  
And the whole time, none of you mentions Gamma once.


	21. Chapter 21

You’re all exhausted, but it’s impossible to get sleep in a bloodied SUV. First there’s the smell: death and decay with slight overtones of dread and a bass note of desperation. It’s enough to put any of you off your breakfast. If it wasn’t the smell, though, it would be the sound. With all of you trying to rest, you’re all making little tired noises: Wash is doing something he’d deny was snoring, Epsilon’s making little moans in his sleep, and Delta keeps huffing and gasping like he’s forgotten how to breathe. Even if they were all quiet, though, you’d still be able to hear your heartbeat in your ears.   
  
There must not be any zombies left in the entire Midwest, because nothing hassles you. Well, except for Delta – he insists on moving on after he deduces that no one’s going to get any relief. He’s right, and you wish you could hate him for that. There’s really nothing to do but move on.   
  
The closer you get to the Civic Center, the more your stomach knots itself. Scenario after scenario runs through your mind, but what ends up getting your goat is the complete cluelessness from everyone else. Even Delta can’t give you a reliable indication of how Gamma will react.   
  
All of you are surprised to find Gamma standing outside the Civic Center, and he looks like he’s unarmed. Delta rolls the car to a cautious stop, and though none of you want to be the first to step out of the car, somebody has to take the initiative. This time, you go for it. “Waiting on us this whole time?” you ask him.   
  
“No, I often stand in one place and look around expectantly.” Gamma rolls his eyes at you. The sarcasm is piled on a little thick, but then you remember that Gamma, according to Maine, is nothing but a bundle of lies. Where his words are deceptive, his body language is not, so it’s this you trust in when you judge him. “I don’t suppose you found the information?”   
  
“How do you know about that?” Was this an open secret for everyone but you and Delta?   
  
Gamma studies your face intently. “It wasn’t like we left you clues.” He’s smirking, though, which means he’s glad you figured it out.   
  
Something’s still bothering you, though. “Why didn’t you take the info yourself?”   
  
“I was uninterested.” A downright lie, and not even a suave one. From the way he’s glancing down, you can tell he knew it was there, but couldn’t get to it and didn’t even know what it was.   
  
You’re prepared to play his word games for as long as it takes to get what you want, but Delta isn’t quite as patient or as polite as you are: he cuts in front of you, holding up his media where Gamma can see it. “We were able to extract the digital media. We are here because we intend to use your system to broadcast this signal.”   
  
“Because my signal can reach internationally.” Once again with the sarcasm. Why can’t he just say what he means?   
  
“I can boost the signal.” Epsilon sounds meek, but his chin is set in a defiant expression when he steps forward. “Or, well,” he amends, deferring to Delta, “I can find the parts if you tell me what you need.”   
  
Gamma looks like he’s about to interrupt, but Wash talks over him. “Name your price. Whatever you want, you got it.”   
  
“I don’t want your charity and I don’t want your handouts, you dirty shisno.” Ironically, it’s the insult that tips you off to his veracity. His price must be too high. He probably wants his partner back.   
  
That’s your fault, and you feel like you have to say something. “I’m sorry about what happened with Wyoming,” you blurt out before you can think it through. “That’s partly my fault. I was the one who made sure he didn’t come back.”   
  
You swear you can see Gamma’s eyes flash red for a split-second. “Do you want to hear a knock-knock joke?” It doesn’t seem optional at this point. “Knock-knock.”   
  
“Who’s there.” Delta’s played this particular game with him before, and his voice comes out as a flat monotone.   
  
Gamma gives you a dark stare from under his eyebrows, then grits out a single word. “Pain.” Almost before you can blink, he’s yanked Delta to him, turned him around, and pressed a tiny medical-grade scalpel to the prominent vein in his neck. “This is my price. One of you dies.”   
  
He has to know what this is doing to you. Delta just looks at you – his expression betrays no emotions, but his eyes are pleading for a release from the fear. “Not him.” It’s a reflex.   
  
“Oh?” Gamma presses the razor in just a little bit, and when Delta’s breath hitches with fear, the blade nicks his prominent adam’s apple. “It seems you’ve grown attached to him.”   
  
“No, no.” You hate yourself for never learning how to lie. How are you going to get Gamma to believe something that’s so far from the truth? You settle on leaving that part of the story out and concentrating on something else. “Delta’s the one with the intel. If you want it to get out, you can’t kill him.”   
  
“Your logic is impeccable. He must be rubbing off on you.” When Gamma lets Delta go, Delta stumbles towards you and sighs with relief, but by the time you’ve taken Delta under a protective arm, it’s now Epsilon who’s in Gamma’s grip. “Perhaps this one, then.”   
  
Wash’s reaction is violent and instantaneous. “Give me back my son!”   
  
“Mm, so you think of him as your son.” It only seems to make Gamma more excited with his prize. “He’s weak. Too young. You’ve coddled him. He can’t face the world alone.” The glint in Gamma’s eyes grows more sickening the longer he has Epsilon as his human shield. “It would be better if I killed you now, little one,” he whispers into the teen’s ear seductively.   
  
The tension is unbearable. Epsilon’s whimpering like a dog that knows it’s about to be put down, and he’s bleeding a little from where he’s been nicked with the glinting razor. Wash’s face is unreadable, but you can almost see the gears turning in his mind. “Please,” you realize Epsilon’s murmuring, “please, please, please,” and you don’t know if he’s asking to be let go or to be eliminated.   
  
“Yes, that’s right, beg for it.” You wonder if this Gamma guy’s ever run with Omega, because he’s certainly starting to sound like him. The grin splitting his face when he looks to Wash makes him look like a maniac. “I’m only doing you a favor. Eventually you’d have to put a bullet through his head, and I’d hate to see that happen.”   
  
You can actually hear it when Wash snaps. It all happens in a blur: Wash reaches for his pistol, and the movement makes Gamma flinch. He draws the scalpel across, making a neat line of red, and the blood runs down Epsilon’s throat. Wash raises his pistol and aims straight at Gamma’s temple; the last thing you see of Gamma’s head before it’s blown completely away is his open-mouthed look of surprise.   
  
You’re sure you’re making the same face when you gape at Wash. “You are one cold motherfucker, you know that?”   
  
Wash can’t even retort; he’s too busy scraping Epsilon off the sidewalk. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” are the only words he seems to know.   
  
Epsilon is coughing, but at least that means he’s still alive. Still, you don’t exactly like being spattered with fresh blood. “I’m fine,” he keeps insisting, but his voice sounds like he swallowed sandpaper. “I’m fine, jus’ let me get up – fuck,” and the hard consonant makes blood spray out from between his teeth.   
  
“Dee,” you order him, not taking your eyes off Epsilon’s injury, “go get the spray bandages.” When he won’t move, you have to shove him to get him moving. “Go!”   
  
That is a lot of blood, and Epsilon looks very pale. He’s not going to die today, though – not if you have anything to say about it. Delta’s back in two blinks with an aerosol canister; he presses it into Wash’s hands so he can do the honors. The thing comes out like shaving cream, but it makes a scab-like barrier almost immediately, staunching the ridiculous flow from that relatively shallow gouge. “Come on,” Wash is muttering under his breath, “breathe, Epsilon, just breathe, you’re gonna be okay…”   
  
Epsilon coughs a few more times; the sound is wet and choked with blood. Wash is frantically petting his hair, as if that’s going to heal him. Delta’s taken one of his hands; the other is in Wash’s grasp. Once again, you’re a voyeur in their sick little family drama. You don’t belong here.   
  
The next full sentence out of Epsilon’s mouth, though, is directed at you. “You still gonna kick my ass?” It comes out all raspy, a screamed whisper, like there’s no tone left underneath.   
  
“Another day, kid,” you promise him, smiling. “Another day.”   
  
It takes some effort to get Epsilon off the ground, but once he’s up, Wash carries him in his arms like he weighs nothing at all. Delta’s no medical professional, but he knows a lot more than the rest of you do, and when he announces his diagnosis that Epsilon’s going to pull through, you and Wash let out a sigh of relief.   
  
Wash refuses to leave Epsilon’s side, even though Delta’s recommended that he rest. When Epsilon tries to get up, both Delta and Wash have to physically restrain him, using all three seatbelts to strap him into the backseat bench. You’re not going to get anything else done today, and you find yourself thankful for a break in the action. Truth be told, all you want is a fuck, a cigarette, and a good night’s sleep, not necessarily in that order.   
  
You can’t always get what you want. Tonight is looking like one of those nights. While everyone else is sleeping, you’re still awake, leaning against the front passenger wheel of the Escalade and staring at Gamma’s dead body while you swill down can after can of Tab.   
  
It’s a ghost town now, and you’re more than a little haunted.


	22. Chapter 22

By the time you find your way back to Wyoming’s bunker, you’re running on fumes – literally and figuratively. All that driving during your epic battle knocked out most of the Escalade’s fuel, and you’re surprised Delta can wring those last few miles out of the tank. For your part, you’re surprised you’re still relatively lucid: you haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours and the adrenaline has definitely worn off by now. You swear your bloodstream is twenty percent Tab by now, because the caffeine has to be the only thing keeping you going.   
  
The bad thing is, you can’t just limp your way through this part of the job: you’re actually needed for once. While you were in a daze, Epsilon was able to point the way to the broadcast room through pure intuition, and of course, it has to be a vault door rigged with traps in about five different places and physically locked down in at least a dozen. Your hands have never been this shaky in your life, and you’re seriously doubting your ability to get this job done.   
  
That is, until Delta stands on tiptoe to kiss you on the cheek and whisper in your ear. “I will disable the traps if you are able to grant me access to the triggers.”   
  
Just one sentence, but it gives you the confidence you need to keep going. You still can’t feel your fingers very well, but your lockpicking kit feels good in your grip, and soon you’re setting to work on the only thing that still feels natural. Delta interrupts you every time you’re just getting into your groove, but you soon realize that it’s only in your best interest – every time he touches the door, another block of C4 detonates on the other side.   
  
Eventually, it’s down to just one lock. “Epsilon,” and when you say his name your voice comes out as hoarse as his, “want to do the honors?”   
  
Wash has to hold him up, but the kid still executes an admirable drop-kick. The last lock gives, and the door goes with it, swinging slowly open. When the room’s finally revealed to you, you’re all transfixed for a moment.   
  
What’s inside can only be described as a gigantic jumble of fuck. There are wires snarled into massive tangles, and you’re not sure if half of them are even plugged in. Dials and switches are glowing from everywhere with no indication of what they do or how they work. There’s a computer terminal, but it looks about ten years outdated. It’s like you stepped into a fucking time-capsule hatch from some shitty science fiction show.   
  
Epsilon, though, has a rapturous expression on his face, like it’s Christmas and his birthday all rolled into one. The old spark comes back into his eyes when he looks over to Delta. “Epsilon will be able to sort through the hardware while I manipulate the software.”   
  
“Not sure you should be moving too much, kid.” Wash still has to hold him close so Epsilon can stand upright, and Epsilon’s leaning on him heavily.   
  
Epsilon snorts out a laugh, and he croaks, “You can take directions, right?”   
  
Delta, who was stepping into the vault, pauses to shoot Epsilon a cross glare. “Please refrain from speaking. Your injury will heal faster if you do not strain yourself.” Epsilon rolls his eyes, but shuts up for now. All the rest of you are relieved that you don’t have to deal with his virulent cursing while you take care of this project.   
  
Surprisingly, the four of you work pretty well as a team. Epsilon ends up on the floor, his back propped up against the curving vault wall, pointing here and there to indicate where you should be working next, and Wash translates his motions while the two of you do the physical work. Delta, meanwhile, spends his time trying to get the computer to make any sort of sense. There’s a hiss when the entertainment broadcast is cut off, and then Epsilon manages to find where the forty-five-second tape was plugged in.   
  
You’re sure you start hallucinating after hour thirty, seeing the cords around your feet as snakes and tentacles that try to close in around you, but finally, just when you think you’re about to pass out, Delta announces a success and turns on the broadcast. The four of you limp out of the room, exhausted, bloody and triumphant, as the announcement blares behind you again. “It isn’t what we thought,” that anonymous female voice says as you close the vault door. “This was not an organic pathogen or a genetic disease.”   
  
No, it wasn’t. This is the human disease called kinship, and you’ve never felt closer to another human being in your life than when Delta lays you down in the sleeping quarters and settles himself in your arms.


	23. Chapter 23

There’s a quiet but ardent debate going on by the time you come around to consciousness again. “Can we keep them?” Epsilon’s asking Wash, his tone still gravelly. You doubt he’ll ever speak normally again.   
  
“They’re not strays, kid, they can take care of themselves,” Wash tells him, but there’s still a grin on his face. Epsilon’s enthusiasm is infectious, and it’s nice to have something to smile about.   
  
Delta, however, betrays no emotions. “York has no great desire to travel with others at this point,” he says quietly, like you’re twisting a knife in his back.   
  
“I don’t know about that, Dee.” None of them realized you were awake, and suddenly all the attention in the room is on you. “They’re family.”   
  
“How so?”   
  
“Well, not blood family, obviously.” You look to Wash. “But I got a brother here, and Epsilon calls you his uncle. Looks like I got myself a nephew I gotta take care of.”   
  
“For select definitions of ‘take care of’ that include ‘kicking my ass’,” Epsilon grumbles good-naturedly.   
  
“He’s not going to lay a finger on you.” Wash squeezes Epsilon closer with an arm around his shoulders, then glares at you pointedly. “Will you, York?”   
  
“Course not.” When you sit up, every joint in your body manages to crack at least once. Delta passes a can of Tab over to you. Normally you’d take it without thinking, but even rudimentary math tells you that you must have drank most of your Tab stores the last time you were awake and feeling sorry for yourself. You push it back to him gently. “I’m gonna save that for a special occasion,” you tell him. “Don’t wanna waste it on something this trivial.”   
  
Delta looks to the open door of the sleeping quarters. Through the doorway, you can see a storeroom – and it’s like you’ve found the Holy Grail, because there’s at least twenty cases of Tab in there. “There are no longer supply issues,” he comments. “And by any method of judgment, our achievements of yesterday are something worth celebrating.”   
  
Three sodas are popped open, and a fourth is pressed into your hand. The four of you raise your cans – “To us!” Epsilon grunts out – and clink them together before taking a long swallow. Delta sneezes a little at the carbonation, and you can’t help but chuckle. For the first time in seven months, you don’t think it’s wrong to laugh.   
  
Wash doesn’t think it’s so funny. “We have to get going,” he insists after he takes another pull.   
  
“Where?” you ask him.   
  
“Home,” Epsilon says quietly.   
  
“Can I tell you a secret, kid?” You lean in close and put a hand on his knee. “You probably already know what I’m gonna say.”   
  
“Yeah,” he admits in a sigh. “I just want to hear you say it.”   
  
“You  _are_  home.” You tousle his hair before reaching for Delta’s hand, and a flare of warmth bursts to life in your cold chest. “Home isn’t a house or an apartment or a penthouse. Home is the people inside. You can make all the changes you want to a place, but you’re not going to feel like you belong there until you get that human connection. And once you have that – you can go anywhere with them, follow them to the ends of the earth, and every minute you spend with them, you’ll feel like you’re coming home.”   
  
“That’s awfully poetical.” Wash finishes his soda, crumples the aluminum in his hand, and sends it flying into the corner of the room. “Whaddaya say, kid?”   
  
Epsilon lets out an exasperated breath, but there’s a smile hugging the corner of his mouth. “I  _guess_  we can give it a try,” he says sarcastically.   
  
“Good answer,” you tell him, tugging Delta closer.   
  
There’s a brief moment of panic where you realize that right here, in this room, you have everything you’ve been searching for. You have a family again, you have a lifetime supply of your only vice, you found the information you wanted to know, and you’re finally safe – this town’s gonna be zombie-free for at least a week. For a few seconds, you’re convinced that it’s all going to get ripped away from you painfully, like peeling a bandage from a wound.   
  
Then Delta squeezes your hand and you remember what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted.   
  
You’ll still be slaying scores of the undead for the foreseeable future, you have to figure out what you’re going to do about Delta, and you need to relearn how to trust people, but this is your happily ever after. It’s not perfect – none of them ever are. But it’s as good as it’s going to get, and you can deal with that.   
  
For right now, though, there’s a banging sound coming from the entrance of the compound, and a muffled yell makes its way through. “Federal marshal, open up or we will shoot!”   
  
“God damn it!” Business as usual. You’re all alert and armed within fifteen seconds, and Delta’s passing you a shotgun as you make your way to the site of the break-in. “I need you to stay tight, Dee. Watch my bad side.”   
  
Delta nods curtly. “Executing in three, two, one.” The government agents finally break down the door, and you grin at each other before bringing your sights to your eyes. “Execute.”


End file.
